In doing just that, Temple maintained a half-game lead ahead of St. Louis atop the conference standings. Having already beaten St. Louis, Temple owns tiebreakers over both the Billikens and Musketeers (16-8, 7-4) with six regular-season games left. It also marked Temple's third victory over Xavier in the last four series meetings.
This win had to be very gratifying.
Xavier was the preseason favorite to win the conference title. And in point guard Tu Holloway, the Musketeers have the reigning conference player of the year.
But on this night, Moore showed why he deserves serious consideration for this season's award.
The 6-foot-4 fifth-year senior flat out dominated anyone who defended him.
Moore scored 30 points to lead Temple to its eighth consecutive win. The Southern High graduate, who made a game-high five three-pointers, was two points shy of his career high. This marked the third 30-point game of his career.
“I just tried to go out there and play my best,” Moore said. “I think when I play well, my team has a great chance to win it.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself to go out there and try to do as much as possible.”
Junior guard Khalif Wyatt (18 points) and center Micheal Eric (11 points, career-high 16 rebounds) also stood out. It was the graduate student's third double-double of the season and fourth for his career.
Temple, which had eight different scorers, shot 46.7 percent from the field against a normally stingy defense.
The Musketeers came into Saturday's game leading the A-10 in field-goal percentage defense (39.1 percent) and third in three-point percentage defense (30.2 percent).
“We made some tough shots,” said Temple coach Fran Dunphy, whose squad shot 45 percent on three-pointers. “We made some timely shots. … I thought we could get some decent looks. We did, and we knocked them down.”
