Temple Tops GW In A Different Setting This Season

(Guru's note: This is the Guru raw cut from the version that topped the printed roundup for Sunday's section)

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA _ Temple and George Washington shared the same goals when they met many times in their final games of the regular season in the past decade.

The stakes often involved the No. 1 seed in the Atlantic 10 tournament and impressing the NCAA tournament committee in case either team would need an at-large bid to go to the Big Dance.

That scenario was not the same Saturday  at the Liacouras Center where the Owls beat the Colonials 61-51 as Kristen McCarthy scored 22 points and Jasmine Stone scored 13. Natasha Thames grabbed 10 rebounds.
Megan Nipe scored 10 points for George Washington.

Temple (22-7, 11-3 A-10) is still high profile, finishing in a tie for second in the conference with Dayton but earning the No. 3 seed because of a loss to the Flyers. The Owls were picked fifth in the preseason and if one wants to compare the first two years of the current regime to the first two years of the previous highly successful era -- er -- we'll wait until NCAA night before ending the phrase.

George Washington (6-21, 3-11), having plunged to its worst record in history, backed into one of two remaining spots for the 12-team tournament that begins Friday at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro, Md.

"GW is six-and-what?" Temple coach Tonya Cardoza said of the rivalry. "But every game I've seen, they fight to the end. Their record doesn't indicate the type of team they have."

The Owls jumped to an 11-0 lead but had to hold off a GW rally down the stretch.

Temple's LaKeisha Eaddy got one steal but that tied her with Pam Balogh's mark of 237 set in the late 1980s.

Dayton 62, La Salle 46 —Morgan Robertson and Antonia Gale each scored 11 points for the Explorers (7-22, 2-12 A-10) in a conference loss to the Flyers (23-6, 11-3), who clinched the No. 2 seed in the A-10 tourney..

La Salle awaits Sunday's game between No. 5 Xavier, the top A-10 seed, and host Fordham to see if they will get the final conference tournament berth. St. Joseph;'s home game against Duquesne will impact the 4-6 seeds.

_ Mel