St. Joseph's, a team burdened by high preseason expectations, is inching its way back to prominence in an unforgiving Atlantic 10.
The Hawks overcame a nine-point deficit with under 6 minutes remaining and defeated Temple in yet another classic Big Five and Atlantic 10 matchup at boisterous Hagan Arena.
In winning, the Hawks also had to survive an unconscious offensive effort by 6-foot-4 Temple senior Khalif Wyatt, who scored a carer-high 34 points.
The Hawks are now 13-7, 4-3 in the A-10 and 2-1 in the Big Five. The preseason choice to win the A-10, St. Joseph's has now won a season-high three consecutive games, the second time the Hawks have done that this season.
This is suddenly a team with renewed confidence.
"Now we can see the top of the league, why not keep going," said St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli, whose team is one game in the loss column out of first place.
Temple fell to 14-7, 3-4 and 2-1.
Hawks 6-8 junior Ronald Roberts had 18 points and 12 rebounds while Carl Jones and C.J. Aiken each had 16 points.
Entering the game Martelli felt his team had to win the battle from beyond the arc, but Temple went 11 for 31 from three-point territory, while the Hawks were just 4 for 12.
The difference was that the Hawks imposed their will inside, led by Roberts.
"Every time we got in the lane we were scoring a lot and had a lot of confidence," Roberts said.
Wyatt's three extended Temple's lead to 61-52 with 5:39 left in the second half, and Temple appeared ready to apply the knockout punch.
"We just kept playing," Jones said. ". . . We fed off the fans."
Jones gave the sellout crowd of 4,200 plenty to cheer about by hitting consecutive threes during a 12-3 run that tied the score at 64-64 after the Hawks' Halil Kanacevic made two free throws with 2:03 left.
Jones and Wyatt then exchanged layups, but the Hawks took the lead for good when Kanacevic found C.J. Aiken for a non-dunk alley oop, making it 68-66 with 25 seconds left.
Kanacevic, who had 12 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, at first thought about taking a three.
"One hundred percent I was thinking I was going to shoot but saw C.J. running to the basket," Kanacevic said.
Temple missed two shots on the other end and fouled the Hawks with 16 seconds remaining. Kanacevic hit both ends of a 1-and-1, increasing the lead to 70-66.
Then Wyatt hit a three from beyond NBA range and the Owls quickly called time, down 70-69 with 10.4 seconds left.
Jones was then fouled with 7.7 seconds left and he missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Wyatt drove to the basket and had the shot blocked by Kanacevic with 0.7 seconds left.
"You knew he was going to the basket and he was shooting it so I ran over and blocked it," Kanacevic said.
Wyatt's shot at the buzzer from the corner fell shot and the Hawks had survived.
"I had time to catch and shoot, but I thought I had to rush it," Wyatt said. "So I rushed it."
Contact Marc Narducci at mnarducci@phillynews.com or @sjnard on Twitter.
