Temple beats La Salle to advance to the Atlantic Ten semifinals

ATLANTIC CITY - Temple's postgame celebration was subdued at best.

Sure, Lavoy Allen smiled with teammates.

Injured center Micheal Eric even bumped fists with Allen at center court.

But for the most part, the 24th-ranked Owls showed little emotion Friday night while exiting the Boardwalk Hall court.

The talented and poised Temple squad had just defeated La Salle, 96-76, in an Atlantic Ten Conference tournament quarterfinal. Perhaps the second-seeded Owls (25-6) didn't celebrate because advancing in this tourney has come to be expected.

After all, Temple is the three-time defending champion.

"It's just one game," junior guard Ramone Moore said. "We've got two more."

Temple, which improved to 26-2 in A-10 quarterfinals, will make its fourth consecutive semifinal appearance at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

The Oswls will face third-seeded Richmond, which beat sixth-seeded Rhode Island.

The Owls also swept this season's three meetings with the 10th-seeded Explorers (15-17).

Temple used a balanced attack, solid three-point shooting, and a tormenting defense to nab its fifth consecutive series victory over La Salle.

The Owls' 96 points were the most they have scored since beating St. Bonaventure, 96-82, on Feb. 20, 2008.

Moore led all scorers with 23 points on 9-for-14 shooting. Sophomore reserve guard Khalif Wyatt added 20 points. Junior point guard point Juan Fernandez scored 19, while Allen and freshman swingman Aaron Brown contributed 14 points apiece.

Allen also finished with a game-high 12 rebounds, a season-high-tying six assists, a season-best three steals, and three blocked shots. The 6-foot-9 power forward recorded his sixth straight double-double. And the senior set an A-10 tourney record with his seventh career double-digit rebound performance.

When Allen wasn't grabbing rebounds, the Owls were shooting 52.6 percent (10 of 19) from three-point land.

"They moved the ball well," La Salle reserve guard Cole Stefan said of Temple's long-range shooting. "We tried to do some of these to force them to take some bad shots. And they knocked them down."

They also scored 24 points off La Salle's 22 turnovers. Fifteen of those turnovers came in the first half.

"I think [the turnovers] were equally as damaging to our club today," said Explorers coach John Giannini, whose squad shot 53 percent from the field. "The turnovers, there's not much we can do.

"We have aggressive kids, and as soon as you take that away from them, we wouldn't be able to score 76 points or shoot 53 percent from the field against a good defensive team."

The Owls did not surrender the lead after Wyatt's three-pointer gave them an 18-17 advantage with 10 minutes, 49 seconds remaining in the first half. Temple led by 23 points (75-52) with 9:52 to play.

"I thought we played well offensively," Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. "We just had to find a way to get more on the offensive end. We only turned it over six times and made some timely shots."

Owls swingman Scootie Randall missed his sixth consecutive game. The junior suffered a hairline fracture in his right foot against Richmond on Feb. 17.