Richmond takes down Temple, heads to Atlantic-10 Final

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Richmond coach Chris Mooney had one goal to accomplish during his press conference Saturday.

"I don't want to say too much because growing up, I always made fun of the coaches who cried at the podium," Mooney said when describing his team's effort in the University of Richmond's 58-54 victory in the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament Saturday afternoon in Atlantic City, N.J. "I don't want to get too emotional."

Richmond still has work to do before it can celebrate too much — it faces the University of Dayton at 1 p.m. Sunday for the league title — but it was an emotional game for Richmond. Temple had been the three-time A-10 winner and had beaten Richmond by 20 points last month in Philadelphia.

When the final buzzer sounded after Richmond prevented the Owls from attempting a final three-pointer, players on the bench rushed onto the court to celebrate. After the post-game handshakes, senior Kevin Smith walked off from mid-court while holding out the "Richmond" part of his jersey. The Richmond fans among the 8,295 fans in attendance (who were mostly rooting for Temple) stood and gave the players a standing ovation.

Make no doubt about it, the Spiders deserved the applause. Richmond appeared to be in control of the game when it held a six-point lead with just more than seven minutes remaining. But then an ill-advised three-pointer by senior Dan Geriot shifted the momentum in Temple's favor.

Temple's Khalif Wyatt got the rebound and pushed it up the floor for a jumper and got bumped by Geriot on the play. His three-point play cut Richmond's lead in half and Ramone Moore brought it down to one when he made a fast-break layup after a steal by Juan Fernandez. Moore finished the comeback with another layup after Geriot missed a layup.

Through all of that, Mooney let his team play and did not call a timeout to try to slow Temple down until freshman Cedrick Lindsay got called for a charge with 4:33 left in the game and Temple up by one. After the timeout, Fernandez missed his jumper and senior Kevin Smith got the rebound for the Spiders.

Richmond appeared to steady itself that possession when senior Justin Harper followed his missed layup and tipped it back in to give Richmond a one-point lead. The Spiders defense clamped down on the Owls and did not allow them to score for the rest of the game as the Spiders made three of their four free throws to seal the win.

"In Coach Mooney and Kevin Anderson, we have great leaders on this team," Harper said. "We just tried to tell everybody to be calm at that point in the game. We've played Temple in so many tight games before and we know that they would make a good run late in the game like that because they are a great team."

Wyatt had a chance to tie the game at 56 with 31 seconds left. He got Geriot in the air on a pump fake and leaned in to try and draw a foul on Geriot. The referees did not call a foul and it instead went down as a turnover as Smith picked up the loose ball.

"I got the switch to a bigger guy guarding me so I thought I had the advantage," Wyatt said. "I got him off his feet and thought I did a good job of leaning into him and getting contact. But the ref didn't see it that way so, turnover."

Anderson, last year's A-10 Player of the Year, led the Richmond charge for most of the game. He scored 22 points and drove to the basket with his controlled, yet seemingly wild drives to keep the Owls from pulling too far out in front.

He was also forced to work hard on the defensive end of the ball as Temple tried to exploit Richmond's match-up zone defense and post a taller player on Anderson.

Things did not start out well for the Spiders. One game after scoring 55 points in their quarterfinal win over Rhode Island one night before, the Spiders made just 37 percent of their first-half shots but managed to trail by only one point headed to the half.

The Spiders are now one win away from securing the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. If Richmond does lose tomorrow, chances are it will receive an at-large bid but Anderson doesn't want to settle for that.

"We're satisfied with the win, but we don't want to leave empty-handed," Anderson said. "As seniors on this team and as leaders on this team, this is one of our goals, to get back to the championship and win it all. That's the best way to go out, as champions of the Atlantic 10."

Saturday's game looked more like last year's A-10 final between these two teams (a 55-50 Temple win) than the Feb. 17 meeting in which Temple won, 72-52. Fernandez went for 20 points on 9-of-10 shooting and Moore had 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting. This time, that duo combined for 18 points and Fernandez especially struggled shooting the ball and went just 3-of-17.

"This time around, they really clamped down on defense," Temple's Lavoy Allen said. "They forced us to take some bad shots and rush some shots."

Richmond gets to play Dayton, a team it beat by nine earlier this year in Ohio, at 1 p.m. tomorrow in the A-10 finals. It is the third time in 10 years that Richmond has made it to the finals but it is still searching for its first conference championship.

Contact staff writer Andrew Prezioso at andrew.prezioso@richmond.edu