Temple comes back to beat St. Louis

Whatever the reason - Juan Fernandez's absence or Temple's poor shooting among the choices - an expected blowout turned out to be a squeaker for the Owls.

Aided by Ramone Moore scoring six of its final eight points, Temple escaped with a 57-53 Atlantic Ten victory over Saint Louis on Sunday at the Liacouras Center.

"I think what it was for the most part is how good Saint Louis is defensively," said Temple coach Fran Dunphy, whose squad improved to 11-3 overall and 2-0 in the A-10.

"Some of it is yeah, you are going to miss that piece," he added about Fernandez, who sat at the end of the bench and is listed as day-to-day after suffering a bone bruise to his left knee during Friday's practice. "But if you sit back and say that's the reason, then we are not going to be very good down the stretch."

For the most part, Temple looked like a shell of itself without him against a Saint Louis squad with its own problems.

The Billikins were without coach Rick Majerus, who missed his second of what is expected to be a three-game absence with an infected left leg.

In addition, Saint Louis was without junior guard Kwamain Mitchell and junior forward Willie Reed. Both players were suspended from school in October for an alleged sexual assault of a female in May, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Mitchell and Reed are both enrolled in class for the spring semester. Mitchell started practicing with the team and awaits clearance from the NCAA to play this season. Reed is still suspended from the team.

Without those two, the Billikins dropped to 5-10 and 0-2. Saint Louis also lost its fifth straight game of the season.

But . . .

"I thought we didn't cut as hard as we needed to," said Dunphy, whose squad owns a 5-1 series advantage over Saint Louis. "We didn't set our screens up like we needed to. There were a lot of deficiencies we had at the offensive end.

"I thought we had some decent looks and couldn't make shots."

As a result, Temple shot 30.6 percent (19 of 62) from the field. The Owls missed 11 consecutive field-goal attempts during one stretch in the first half. Then they missed eight straight at one point in the second half.

The Owls improved shortly after Temple power forward Lavoy Allen exited the game with his fourth foul with 10 minutes, 54 seconds remaining.

Trailing by eight points at the time, Temple switched to a small lineup. And that move paid off, as the Owls made 7 of 14 shots the rest of the way.

Temple sophomore guard T.J. DiLeo knotted the score at 49 with a pair of foul shots with 2:55 left.

Moore then went on a personal 5-0 run to give Temple a 54-49 cushion with 1:13 to play. Then after the Billikins pulled within a point, freshman swingman Aaron Brown's foul shots made it a 56-53 game with 21 seconds left. Then Moore added a foul shot one second later.

The junior shooting guard finished with a game-high 15 points despite shooting just 4 of 17 from the field.

"I think with me doing the things I did at the end of the game, it shows that you can have a bad game," Moore said, "but then at the end, you can do things that make your team win."