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Men's City 6 Roundup (Jan. 28-29): Penn, 'Nova continue strong league play

01/29/2022, 8:45pm EST
By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Snow blanketed much of the Northeast on Saturday, but somehow it didn’t cause too many issues for the City 6, as all eight games went on as scheduled — though it didn’t hurt that five of them were on the road.

Here’s a brief recap of of the weekend’s action on the men’s side, which saw five teams play Saturday and one play Friday night:

Jordan Dingle dribbles a basketball

Jordan Dingle (above, in Dec.) scored 31 points to guide the Quakers to their fifth league win of the season on Friday night. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Penn 78, Harvard 74

Quakers coach Steve Donahue put his team through the ringer in the non-conference; by the time they lost to La Salle on Dec. 11, barely a month into the season, they were 3-10, though not defeated.

The Ivy League slate has certainly been a new page for Penn, which improved to 5-2 in the Ancient Eight with its four-point road win on Friday night, at a good place in the midway point of the league slate. Penn’s now in third place in the league, behind Princeton and  Yale, but the four teams directly the Quakers are either 2-3 (Cornell, Harvard) or 2-4 (Brown, Dartmouth).

Friday night’s win was on the back of a 31-point outing from Jordan Dingle, who was spectacular and efficient, going 9-of-16 from the floor, 3-7 from deep and 10-11 from the foul line, with three assists and two turnovers. He had two buckets during a key 8-0 run with under six minutes to play, which turned a 62-61 lead into a 70-61 advantage with 2:25 left.

Max Martz (15 points) and Clark Slajchert (10), who combined to hit six foul shots in the final  16 seconds, joined Dingle in double figures.

Dingle’s big night offset a similar effort from Harvard’s Noah Kirkwood (27 points/8 rebounds); Luka Sakota added 18 and Kale Catchings 10 for the Crimson.

Penn gets back in action on Feb. 4 with a game at Columbia, where they get a chance to turn around a 73-69 loss on Jan. 8.

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No. 26 Davidson 77, La Salle 69

The Explorers put a decent scare into the Atlantic 10 leaders, turning a 15-point deficit in the game’s final eight minutes into a four-point game with 1:41 left, but the Wildcats did just enough to hang on, going 6-of-6 from the foul line to come out of Philly as the only one-loss team in the league.

La Salle (6-12, 1-7), who lost a single-digit game for the sixth time in seven league losses, got 18 points from Jack Clark, who’s scored in double figures in five of his last six games; Clifton Moore (14 point) and Khalil Brantley (11 points) joined the Cheltenham native in double figures. 

The Explorers took 32 3-pointers against Davidson (17-3, 7-1), making seven (21.9%); Davidson had just as many makes in 19 attempts (36.8%). 

Luka Brajkovic had 22 points for Davidson, while Foster Loyer and Hyunjung Lee had 14 each. 

La Salle gets back in action on Wednesday at George Washington (6-12, 2-4).

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Towson 66, Drexel 62

This one’s going to sting for the Dragons, who had a 12-point lead on the road at Towson and then fell apart in the second half. A 16-0 Towson run turned a six-point deficit into a 57-47 lead with 4:37 left, though Drexel didn’t leave Maryland without a fight.

Sophomore guard Xavier Bell scored all seven of his points in the final two minutes, a bucket with 17 seconds left making it a two-point game, though Towson’s Nicolas Timberlake sealed the win with a pair of free-throws with 10 seconds remaining. 

Camren Wynter led Drexel (9-9, 4-4 CAA) with 20 points, while Amari Williams had 10 points and eight rebounds as he continues to start in place of James Butler, who’s recovering from an injury. Butler played 16 minutes off the bench, with six points and four rebounds.

Neither Williams nor Butler could do much against Towson big man Charles Thompson, who was 11-of-14 from the floor for 23 points, with 11 rebounds, to lead the Tigers (16-6, 7-2).

Drexel, which has alternated wins and losses over its last eight games, stays on the road for its next two games, at UNCW (13-5, 7-0) on Monday and then at Delaware (15-7, 6-3) on Feb. 3. 

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Erik Reynolds II makes a layup

Erik Reynolds II (above, in Nov.) scored a career-high 21 points in the Hawks' loss to Saint Bonaventure on Saturday. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

Saint Bonaventure 80, Saint Joseph’s 69

A new high-water mark for freshman guard Erik Reynolds II was in vain, as St. Joe’s couldn’t hang with one of the league favorites on the road. 

The Bonnies (12-5, 4-2) opened up a double-digit lead late in the first half, though St. Joe’s (9-11, 3-6) managed to close it to a four-point game at the break. But the hosts quickly built it back over 10 points and held it there for almost the entirety of the second half, save for a 3-pointer by Taylor Funk that cut it to 69-62 with 1:37 remaining.

Reynolds finished with 21 points, his best outing yet, with four assists and one turnover. Cameron Brown scored 15 before fouling out, while Funk and Ejike Obinna added 10 each as well. Jordan Hall, the Hawks’ star sophomore wing guard, was helped to eight points on 3-of-12 shooting, with seven rebounds and six assists, though he also committed five turnovers.

Bonaventure had a 24-6 advantage in fast break points and got to the foul line 29 times (making 24) while St. Joe’s got to the line eight times, making seven. The Bonnies also made one more shot (27) than St. Joe’s while taking 12 fewer (64 to 52).

Billy Lange’s group gets a whole week off until its next game, Saturday at home against Fordham (9-9, 2-4).

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SMU 69, Temple 61
Temple’s surprise success in the American Athletic Conference on the heels of losing its leading scorer looked like it might continue, as the Owls were up three points with 5:51 remaining in Dallas. But a 3-point play and two triples were part of a 13-0 run the Mustangs put together at just the right time, slamming the door shut on Temple.

The loss snapped a four-game win streak for the Owls (11-7, 4-3 AAC), who’ve been giving teams fits even without Khalif Battle, lost for the season with a broken foot back in December. Temple’s offense struggled to be efficient, shooting 23-of-66 (34.8%) from the floor and 7-of-15 from the foul line, and got outscored 32-20 in the paint and 18-11 off turnovers.

Marcus Weathers (27 points, 9 rebounds) had an outstanding afternoon for SMU (16-4, 7-1), shooting 11-of-16 from the floor to carry the Mustangs’ offense, which also got 11 points from Kendric Davis and 10 from Emmanuel Bandoumel

Damian Dunn had 16 points on 6-17 shooting to lead Temple in the scoring column; Jeremiah Williams had 13 points and Nick Jourdain added 11. Jahlil White had 11 rebounds and four assists along with four points and three steals.

Temple heads out on the road again on Wednesday to East Carolina (11-8, 2-5). Temple beat ECU 78-75 on Jan. 8 in Philadelphia in their earlier meeting.
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Eric Dixon holds a basketball

Eric Dixon (above, in Dec.) has been a key contributor for the Wildcats recently. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Villanova 73, St. John’s 62

When the Wildcats lost back-to-back games against Baylor and Creighton back in December, there were worries if ‘Nova had lost its magic, if this was the year that their stranglehold on the Big East would be over. Well. So much for that.

Villanova’s win over St. John’s on Saturday at the Pavillion was its third in a row and ninth in 10 games, an output which matches the women’s team perfectly. The Wildcats (16-5, 9-2), who sit “behind” only Providence (17-2, 7-1) in the Big East standings, were 11-of-23 (47.8%) from beyond the arc against the Johnnies, with four players making multiple 3-pointers. 

Collin Gillespie, who’s having the best season of his career from beyond the arc, was an efficient 5-7 FG (3-5 3PT, 4-5 FT) to lead Villanova with 17 points. Eric Dixon and Caleb Daniels each added 15 points; Dixon, the redshirt sophomore forward from Abington, continued his strong play of late, shooting 4-5 FG, 1-1 3PT, 6-6 FT, with seven rebounds.

St. John’s (11-8, 3-5) jumped out to a 7-2 lead but that was really the only momentum the visitors had all afternoon. Villanova used a 20-3 run late in the first half to take a 40-26 lead into the break, and maintained a double-figure lead the entire second half.

The Wildcats next travel to Wisconsin to take on Marquette (15-6, 7-3) on Wednesday; the Golden Eagles beat Villanova on Jan. 19 in Philadelphia, holding Villanova to its second-lowest scoring total of the season in a 57-54 final.


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