Owls' Moore named Big 5 Player of Week

Temple junior guard Ramone Moore has been named Big 5 Player of the Week. Moore, of Southern High, averaged 24 points, 5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in a 2-0 week for the Owls. Moore scored a game-high 22 points in a win over Fordham. He followed that up with a game-high 26 points and a career-high 9 rebounds in a road win at Dayton

On the men's honor roll:

* La Salle sophomore center Aaric Murray, who averaged 19 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 blocks in a 1-1 week for the Explorers. He scored 18 points on 7-for-13 shooting in a win at Saint Louis and scored 20 against St. Bonaventure. He also moved into second place on the all-time blocked shots list at La Salle.

* Saint Joseph's freshman guard Langston Galloway, who tied a career-high with 25 points in a come-from-behind win over Fordham. He shot 7-for-13 from the field and 4-for-9 from three-point range while adding 4 rebounds and 3 assists. Langston also has been named Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week for the second consecutive week and for the third time this season.

Temple junior forward Kristen McCarthy has been named Big 5 Women's Player of the Week. McCarthy averaged 17 points per game as the Owls won their 11th and 12th consecutive game.

On the women's honor roll:

* La Salle senior guard Ashley Gale, who averaged 21.5 points in a 1-1 week for the Explorers. She scored a game-high 21 points, 5 steals, and 4 assists in a win over Rhode Island and had  22 points against Temple.

* Villanova junior forward Lindsay Kimmel, who scored a career-high 21 points on 7-for-15 shooting from three-point range against Syracuse.

* Saint Joesph's junior forward Kelly Cavallo, who nearly averaged a double-double on the week, collecting 11 points and 9.0 rebounds per game.

* Penn junior forward Jess Knapp, who led the Quakers in scoring in Penn's first Ivy sweep since 2008-09. She shot 47.3 percent from the field, averaged 11.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 2.0 blocks, 2.5 steals and 1.5 assists per game in just 27.0 minutes.

----

As is the case with the Penn State football team, Louisiana isn't what you'd call prime recruiting territory for Saint Joseph's basketball coach Phil Martelli. But it's always a good thing when you're tipped off about a prospect that can play, whether that prospect lives just down the street or 1,400 miles away on the bayou.

For Penn State coach Joe Paterno, that Louisiana contact was Rich Mauti, a former wide receiver for the Nittany Lions who settled in the New Orleans suburb of Mandeville, after an NFL career that included seven seasons with the Saints. It was the elder Mauti who helped his football-playing sons, Patrick and Michael, grow up with a desire to someday play for their father's alma mater. Pat, a wideout, saw sporadic action for the Nits, mostly on special teams, but his younger brother, who'll be a redshirt junior in 2011, is another potential All-America linebacker for a school known for producing standouts at that position.

That same scenario, more or less, explains why two freshman guards from Louisiana, Langston Galloway and Patrick Swilling Jr., came to be on Saint Joseph's kiddie roster, which includes five pure rookies and five sophomores.

Playing the part of tipster Rich Mauti for the Hawks is St. Joe's assistant coach Geoff Arnold, whose sister, Jeralynn, is Langston Galloway's mother. Arnold began telling Martelli about Galloway, one of the top high school players in Louisiana, and … well, here we are. Galloway not only starts for the Hawks, but matched his college career-high with 25 points in Sunday's come-from-behind, 76-70 victory against Fordham in East Rutherford, N.J., dropping more hints that he'll be a major factor in St. Joe's rebuilding blueprint.

And not only did Galloway come north to play for Martelli and uncle Geoff, but he brought along a friend, guard Patrick Swilling Jr., who was Galloway's AAU summer teammate and, oh, yeah, a three-time All-State selection who averaged 18.1 points as a senior and led Brother Martin High to the Louisiana Class 5-A championship. Swilling - whose father, Patrick Sr., is a former star linebacker for the Saints - doesn't start, but he has played in 23 of the Hawks' 24 games this season and averages 11.6 minutes as a part of Martelli's backcourt rotation. He swished a key three-pointer Sunday as St. Joe's battled back from three 16-point deficits, two after intermission.

Larry Galloway was identifiable from other St. Joe's fans at the Izod Center by the crimson shirt he wore with the message "Geaux Hawks" on the back. That's a variation of the Cajun-patois "Geaux Tigers" garb won by tens of thousands of supporters of LSU. Larry Galloway and Patrick Swilling Sr. seemed to be having the time of their lives as their sons helped fuel St. Joe's to only its second victory in the last 11 games.

"It's a good environment for Langston because he's has family and friends here," said Larry Galloway, a Louisianian who married Philadelphia native Jeralynn and thus laid the foundation of the basketball bridge that now connects the Big Easy to the City of Brotherly Love.

The younger Galloway put up some big numbers at Christian Life Academy and attracted the attention of other recruiters, but there might have been some concern that he hadn't faced competition as stiff as that encountered by, say, Swilling. It's true that Galloway's 26-point average came for a school with a 1-A classification, raising questions as to how quickly he could adapt to playing at the Division I level. In retrospect, though, any hesitation on the part of other coaches might have aided Martelli and Arnold in making their sales pitch; St. Joe's isn't exactly a huge state university with an enrollment of 40,000-plus.

"I knew about Langston toward the end of his sophomore year [at Christian Life Academy]," Martelli said. "I got really excited when I saw more tapes of him when he was a junior. I made a couple of trips down there and he decided to come here."

Asked to describe Galloway's game, Martelli said, "When all is said and done, the label you're going to put on him is `Winner.' "

That label might hold true on an individual basis before it applies to some of Martelli's fledgling Hawks in a collective sense. St. Joe's has only two seniors on its roster, forward Idris Hilliard and guard Charoy Bentley, but it's evident the kids getting so much playing time now have experienced some growing pains. Another freshman who'll have to expand his overall game for St. Joe's to again become relevant in the Atlantic 10 Conference and Big 5 wars is forward C.J. Aiken, who had seven blocked shots against the Rams to boost his second-best-in-the-nation average to 3.96 rejections per contest. Aiken has uncanny timing and excellent hops, but he's a scrawny 186 pounds whose rebounding average of 4.6 per game scarcely tops his blocked-shots average. Amazingly, the 6-2 Galloway leads Hawks' rebounders with a 5.7 average.

While the comeback that sank Fordham is a high note in an otherwise dreary season, it should be noted that the Rams now have lost 37 consecutive A-10 games. But small successes in the here and now can lay the groundwork for larger ones down the road, so Martelli and Co. are willing to take whatever bits of hope avail themselves in the present with an eye toward what they believe is a more prosperous future.

And if Langston Galloway and Patrick Swilling Jr. know of any friends back home who can hoop and might like the taste of cheesteaks, the Hawks probably could learn to appreciate another gumbo-flavored import.