Saturday’s Temple - St Joe’s game was a perfect example of Big 5 basketball at its best.  Even though I had been at school in Syracuse for the last four years, I still managed to catch a Big 5 game or two each winter break, but this was the best Big 5 contest I’d witnessed in a while.

We’ve had St. Joseph’s season tickets since I’ve been in kindergarten so it was usually the Hawks vs whomever at the Palestra.  But with my brother and I away at school, my dad found himself making it to less and less games and finally gave up his season tickets this year.  I talked to my buddy Dan who goes to Temple and sure enough he was able to get me a ticket to Saturday’s Hawks vs Owls game with one catch - it was in the Temple student section.  As an aspiring sportsbroadcaster/journalist this was a perfect opportunity to be completely objective - not that I really had a choice if I wanted to make it out of the Liacouras Center alive.

It was a great game all the way, but the final minutes were phenomenal.  The Hawks had trailed for most of the second half, and Mark Tyndale looked like he was going to single-handedly seal the Owl victory.  Tyndale scored Temple’s final 10 points down the stretch and made one monster block.  But with a chance to seal the game with free throws, up 67-65, the senior missed the front end of a 1 and 1.  St. Joe’s rushed down the court and Pat Calathes ended up with the ball behind the three point line with the closest Owl defender at least a SEPTA stop away.  After Calathes sank the go-ahead 3, the student section around me - rowdy and boisterous all game - went silent.  Surprisingly enough Temple was able to get the ball coast to coast in under 4 seconds but a last minute layup attempt was blocked by Ahmad Nivins.  The Owl faithful wanted a goal-tending call - and if the ball had been released in time, they would have had a case.  But based on all the replays I’ve seen it looked like Tyndale hadn’t yet released the ball when the backboard lit up to signal the end of the game.

The students’ shock and silence turned to anger for some as they threw anything they could get their hands on at the refs and Hawk players as they ran for the cover of the locker room.  I knew the feeling, it’s not like I hadn’t been there (of course every Philly fan has).  I was at the Elite 8 game between St. Joe’s and Oklahoma St. in East Rutherford when the Sooners lost the ball only to have it end up in the hands of John Lucas who sank an ugly three off the back of the iron with 6 seconds left to win the game.  I was too much in shock to make the jump to angry, I was completely numb.  I was stone sober, but supposedly I drove four hours back to Syracuse that night from North Jersey.  I couldn’t tell you how I got back.  My buddy Tommy was in the same state until an obnoxious Sooner fan got in his face.  That was a mistake.  Tommy got angry and he knocked him and the few teeth he had left out with one punch.    As for Saturday night, I wasn’t kidding about trying to get out of their alive - I actually wanted to get out of the Liacouras Center and into the lovely North Philly neighborhood that surrounds Temple University.

The thing that struck me most about the Owl animosity towards the small Hawk contingent in the upper corner of the arena was that it’s exactly the way St. Joe’s fans act towards Villanova.  “Preppies, rich kids, Daddy’s paying your credit card bill” were all things TU undergrads were directing at St. Joe’s fans.  And of course the Hawk students responded the way  ‘Nova fans do with a chant of “safety school.”  And so goes the food chain of Big 5 schools.  As my buddy Dan said “Temple always gets S— on.”

Final thoughts:  Temple is playing really well right now and it looks like they’ve turned the proverbial corner as long as they don’t stay down about this loss….  Dionte Christmas is a lot of fun to watch….  St. Joe’s couldn’t really afford to lose this game if they want to keep their NCAA hopes alive and now that they’ve won an intense close game (OT losses to Gonzaga and Creighton), maybe they can really take off.