Staley's Owls are A-10 regular season champs

March 2, 2008

Staley's Owls are A-10 regular season champs

Kenny Walter
OwlScoop.com Staff Writer

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Sometimes, even the coaches and media can be wrong.

Such was the case when it came to the preseason voting for women's basketball teams in the Atlantic 10 conference. Temple was predicted to finish in fourth place, but the Owls instead clinched the A-10 regular season title Saturday at the Liacouras Center with a 64-46 win over Massachusetts.

Temple, now 19-11 overall and 12-2 in the conference, finished in a first-place tie with George Washington, but the Owls own the tiebreaker, thanks to a 68-66 win over the Colonials back in January.

Temple will enjoy the top seed and a first-round bye in the upcoming A-10 tournament, which begins March 7 at Saint Joseph's Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse. The Owls will play Saturday at noon against the winner of Friday's game between No. 8 seed Richmond and No.9 seed Duquesne.

Getting the top seed in the conference tournament has its privileges, as second-seeded GW and third-seeded Xavier, which also received first-round byes, are on the other side of the bracket. That means the Owls will not have to face them until the tournament's championship game.

If Temple gets that far, it will most likely have done enough to earn a fifth consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament, even if the Owls should fall in the title game. Winning the regular season championship certainly did not hurt them in the eyes of the NCAA selection committee.

"It feels great," Temple coach Dawn Staley said. "It feels great because no one in the A-10 or anybody else gave us a shot at where we are today. I'm proud of my basketball team for playing through a tough season."

The Owls also celebrated their four seniors prior to the game with tributes to guard Candice Borrows, center Lady Comfort, guard Ashley Morris and forward Nicole Pittman.

All four started the game.

[The pre-game tribute] was good," Comfort said. "It will be memorable to us once everything is all over."

The Owls thrived with physical play that frustrated UMass all game. Comfort grabbed 13 rebounds to go along with her 12 points. Junior forwards Shenita Landry and Shanea Cotton collected eight boards apiece, and Temple out-rebounded UMass, 42-29.

"I think our whole team played physical," Staley said, "probably more physical then I would have liked. The game that we had on Wednesday night just overflowed into this game. It's hard to turn it on and off.

"Our team was just physical. I thought UMass was physical. It was just that type of game."

A big key was Temple's ability to corral 16 offensive rebounds. Comfort grabbed seven of her own, and Landry had four.

The Owls were a bit stagnant at times in the first half but shot a respectable 41.9 percent from the field. Freshman guard Shaqwedia Wallace chipped in nine points toward the end of the half on 4-for-4 shooting to help Temple build a 31-26 halftime lead.

"She came ready to play," Comfort said of Wallace's performance. "It was her opportunity to play. She had to come out and play her role, and she did a good job."

The second half belonged to sophomore guard Lakeisha Eaddy. She had 12 of her game-high 16 points in the game's final 20 minutes, including two straight triples that brought Temple's lead to 10 points.

The Owls end the regular season on a five-game winning streak to ensure that they would finish three spots ahead of where they were predicted to be.

"What's today?" Morris asked. "It's March 1st. We are number one in the conference, so whatever happened in October didn't make any difference. We had a lot of fight in us, and we're number one now."