PHILADELPHIA — La Salle men's basketball erased a nine-point halftime deficit to tie twice in the second half, but Temple answered with a 15-4 run to defeat the Explorers 84-71 in a Philadelphia Big 5 battle on Sunday afternoon at John E. Glaser Arena.
The loss dropped La Salle to 1-3 overall, and Temple improved to 2-2.
Rob Dockery scored a team-high 14 points and grabbed six rebounds; Anthony Finkley added 13 points and seven rebounds; and Noah Collier and Devin Booker each scored 10 for the Explorers. Jaden Johnson also had nine points and a team-high four assists for La Salle.
La Salle led three times early in the first half, the last on a Booker 3-pointer that made it 14-13 with 14:32 left. Johnson's fast-break layup and free throw tied it at 23 with 9:55 left. Temple then went on a 12-2 run, with Baboucarr Njie scoring eight of the points, to lead 35-25.
Dockery kept the Explorers in range with two 3-pointers in less than a minute and a half, both assisted by Trey Moss, but Derrian Ford's layup with 1:06 left in the opening frame made it 46-33.
Johnson hit a jumper, and Bowyn Beatty added a fast-break layup at the buzzer off a pass from Dockery to cut it to 46-37 at the break.
Temple answered with 15 of the next 19 points, led by a Griffiths 3-pointer and back-to-back Ford layups, to take a 63-52 lead with 11:06 left. La Salle kept chipping away. Dockery's tip-in after two Collier misses cut it to 63-57, and Johnson's jumper made it 64-59 at 8:18.
After Griffiths' dunk and another 3-pointer pushed the lead back to 10, La Salle grabbed three straight offensive rebounds on one possession, and Finkley's tip-in made it 69-61. Kam Burton's 3-pointer, set up by Smith, cut it to 69-64 with 4:50 left.
Griffiths hit another 3 to make it 72-64, and Finkley's jumper made it 72-66 with 3:22 to play. Dallis Dillard answered with a layup and Dez White hit a 3-pointer to stretch Temple's lead to double digits.
Temple got 20 points from Derrian Ford and 19 from Gavin Griffiths, who made 5 of 11 3-pointers and grabbed 10 rebounds. The Owls shot 12 of 28 (42.9%) from beyond the arc.
The Explorers committed 15 turnovers, and Temple turned them into 16 points. Temple also went to the line 26 times, making 16, while La Salle was 8 of 10. The Owls' bench outscored the Explorers' reserves 31-17.
La Salle outrebounded Temple 37-31 and scored 17 second-chance points off 13 offensive rebounds. The teams each scored 32 points in the paint. The Explorers shot 44.3% overall and 9 of 23 from 3-point range, but were just 4 of 14 from deep in the second half.
La Salle will return to John E. Glaser Arena to host Coppin State (1-4) on Wednesday, Nov. 18. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
