Temple University Athletics
Balanced Attack Leads Men's Basketball Past College of Charleston, 70-65
11.15.08 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 15, 2008
CHARLESTON, SC - All-America candidate Dionte Christmas posted his second straight 26-point game topping five Temple double-figure scorers in leading the Owls to a 70-65 win over host College of Charleston Saturday afternoon in the semifinals of the Charleston Classic. Temple, 2-0 for the first time since 2000-01, will take on the winner of the Clemson/TCU game Sunday at 4:00 p.m. The game can be heard live on The BigTalker, 1210 AM WPHT and will be shown tape-delayed on Comcast SportsNet at 1:30 a.m.
Besides Christmas, the Cherry and White had two players post double-doubles. Sophomore forward Lavoy Allen had 10 points and a game-high 12 rebounds for his second straight double-double while red-shirt freshman Ramone Moore scored 11 points, including seven in a key Owl run, and added 10 rebounds.
Junior Ryan Brooks chipped in with 11 points, including four big free throws in the final minute, and senior Semaj Inge, making his second straight start in place of injured center Sergio Olmos, added 10 points.
"It is a good win for us," said Temple head coach Fran Dunphy. "I thought we did just about everything we wanted to do defensively with the exception of (Marcus) Hammond who was just unbelievable down the stretch. We lost him a little bit, but there were a couple of jumpers that were really deep and he deserves a lot of credit."
Temple took control of the game following a 12-2 early run, spearheaded by seven Christmas points, to take a 12-7 lead. The Owls never trailed after that point, but were unable to put much distance between themselves and the Cougars.
Charleston's defense keyed on Christmas following his early scoring outburst, limiting the Owl sharpshooter to just four points the remaining of the half. The senior co-captains teammates, however, stepped up with Brooks scoring seven first half points and Allen adding six to go along with his seven rebounds to give Temple a 32-24 lead at intermission.
Charleston closed the gap to four points by the first media timeout and seemed to have the Owls frazzled with a trapping press. With the score 34-30, Moore stepped up, tallying seven of his points in a key 9-2 run to provide Temple with some breathing room, 43-32, with just under 13 minutes to play. Moore looked like a savvy veteran, making a follow shot, draining a trey and then taking his man to the basket from the top of the key.
Christmas then extended the Cherry and White lead to 13 points a three-pointer at the 9:41 mark, his first basket in 18 minutes. The Cougars cut the deficit back to five on a 10-2 run with Hammond, who led Charleston with 15 points off the bench, draining two long-range threes.
Christmas answered with one of his three, three-pointers in the game and Inge made a nice reverse lay-up to bring the lead back to double-figures, 55-45, with 5:49 remaining.
Another trey by Hammond cut the margin back to five, with Christmas again answering, converting a traditional three-point play. Moore nailed a medium range jumper to push the score to 60-50 with just under four left on the clock.
The Owls would then seal the game at the line, converting all 10 attempts in the final 84 seconds to seal the game.
"We were really pleased with our free throw shooting," added Dunphy. "It was a big part of our win today because we did shoot the ball well down the stretch. Ryan Brooks made four in a row that were really big and Dionte made two that were really big as well."
Dunphy also credited the play of his freshman guard.
"Ramone is really playing very well," he said. "Once he really gets his feet set defensively and understands he has to keep people in front of him, he is going to be someone we can go to all the time. He made a couple of really nice plays today in addition to making some big shots."
The Owls also dominated the Cougars on the glass, out-rebounding the hosts, 47-27.
