St. Joseph's University won Philadelphia's first-ever Big 5 Classic on Saturday, as Rasheer Fleming put up a career-high 22 points in Saint Joseph's 74-65 victory against Temple.
The St. Joseph's forward also contributed nine rebounds and four blocks for the Hawks in Saturday's game at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia.
The Hawks also saw help from Lynn Greer III, who scored 14 points while shooting four of eight from the field and six for seven from the foul line, along with an added six rebounds.
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Also, St. Joe's Cameron Brown was four-of-eight shooting (three for seven from three-point range) to finish with 11 points, while adding six rebounds.
The Owls were led in scoring by Joran Riley, who finished with 20 points, eight rebounds, three steals and two blocks.
Temple also got 19 points and nine rebounds from Zion Stanford, while Matteo Picarelli put up 11 points.
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The Hawks are now 6-2 on the season, while the Owls moved to 4-3.
What is the Big 5 Classic?
The Big 5 Classic was announced earlier in 2023, replacing the former Big 5 title that was simply determined by round-robin, regular-season play between five of the six area schools (minus Drexel).
The five member schools came together to expand the Big 5 to officially include Drexel, which had been in D1 basketball since 1974 but was never recognized as a member of the group.
With Drexel's addition, the six schools were separated into two pods of three teams each for the inaugural 2023 Big 5 Classic. Pod 1 comprised of Temple, La Salle, and Drexel this year, while Villanova, St. Joe's, and Penn made up Pod 2. Teams in each pod played each other in a round-robin format.
As a result of pod play, the top teams in each pod advanced to the championship game, the second teams in each pod will play in the third-place game, and the bottom teams will face off in the fifth-place game.
All three games took place back-to-back-to-back on Saturday afternoon.
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.