La Salle

IN COLLEGE basketball, you often get judged by whether your team makes the NCAA Tournament and how it does when it gets there. That really does not give a complete picture, but we live in a snapshot world. Over the last eight seasons, La Salle has been .500 or better in Atlantic 10 games five times. Only Xavier (eight), Temple (seven) and Saint Joseph's (six) have done better. Saint Louis, Massachusetts, Richmond, Dayton and Rhode Island also have five .500 or better seasons. Even before the 2012-13 breakthrough, La Salle was gradually getting better and was competitive.

STATE COLLEGE - It didn't take long in Friday's PIAA Class AAAA baseball final at Penn State for Corey Baiada to realize that La Salle batterymate Kevin Long had arrived with his "A" game. "He had a lot of confidence, had good movement on his fastball, and he was getting a lot of first-pitch strikes," the senior catcher said. "When he's got things going like that, he's tough to beat. " Long got even better as the contest progressed, retiring Council Rock South's last 12 batters, and the Explorers, becoming the first District 12 program to gain top state honors on the diamond, downed the Golden Hawks, 3-1, at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park.

CONVENTIONAL wisdom suggests that Temple's basketball team will lose another game at some point the rest of the way. It could be Saturday, when the Owls go to Saint Joseph's with a chance to clinch the Big 5 title. It might be in the final Atlantic 10 Tournament in Atlantic City, where they cut down the nets in 2008, '09 and '10. Or maybe they will take a 17-game winning streak into the Madness. But for right now, they're getting it done about as well as anyone not named Kentucky or Syracuse.

AROUND THE CITY BEST SHOOTING La Salle. The Explorers (16-6, 6-3 Atlantic 10) made more threes (18) than Fordham (6-18, 2-7) took (16). When you outscore a team 54-9 from the arc, you will win easily. And La Salle won easily at Gola, 89-53. Tyreek Duren, who did not miss a shot from anywhere and also had eight assists against one turnover, Sam Mills and Ramon Galloway were a ridiculous 16-for-19 from three and combined for 56 points. It is especially good news that Mills, a very good three-point shooter his first two seasons (41.7 percent, 43.5 percent)

Coach: Dr. John Giannini (119-128, ninth year) Last season: 21-13, (9-7 A-10) Postseason: NIT first round; lost to Minnesota, 70-61. Last league title: 1992 (MAAC) Last NCAA berth: 1992 PROJECTED STARTERS F Jerrell Wright So. 9.8P 5.6R C Steve Zack So. 1.4P 2.3R G Tyreek Duren Jr. 13.2P 4.0A G Sam Mills Jr. 10.6P 2.4R G Ramon Galloway Sr. 14.1P 4.6R KEY RESERVES G D.J. Peterson So. 3.0P 2.0R G Tyrone Garland Jr. *4.6P 1.3A *Stats from eight games last year at Virginia Tech.

Jerrell Wright's rim-shaking dunk early tied the game and La Salle never gave up the lead in its 71-61 win over St. Bonaventure on Saturday afternoon. Fans in the packed Tom Gola Arena energized the Explorers on Senior Day, when coach John Giannini's team earned its 20th win and the No. 7 seed in the Atlantic Ten tournament. La Salle will host tenth-seeded Richmond on Tuesday in the first round. Giannini said Richmond plays a different style of basketball from a lot of other teams in the league, and that his players need to continue the tight defense they've been playing as of late.

Haverford High's Shane Ryan added the gold medal from the 100-yard backstroke to the one he won in the 50 freestyle a day earlier, wrapping up the PIAA Class AAA boys' state swimming championships Thursday at Bucknell University's Kinney Natatorium. Ryan won the backstroke in 47.17 seconds, easily outdistancing runner-up Nic Graesser of Conestoga (48.97). La Salle completed a sweep of the three relay events on its way to the team championship as Eric Schultz, Joseph Maginnis, Sean Regan and Christopher Szekely won the 400 freestyle relay in 3:02.74.

One word described La Salle's distance medley relay team entering the Penn Relays: disrespected. The Explorers felt disrespected because they weren't considered among the favorites, and because, even though they placed in the top three at last year's event, they didn't appear in the Penn Relays website's race preview. The Explorers took those emotions and an underdog mentality into Friday and shocked the field, winning the Championship of America in 10 minutes, 4.93 seconds. "It feels so good to win for all those people who doubted us," La Salle's Levi Hardy said.

LAURELDALE, Pa. — La Salle advanced to the PIAA Class AAAA semifinals with a 7-6 win Friday over Central Dauphin. Ryan Otis drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh, scoring pinch-runner Marcus Sistrun. The Explorers scored three in the sixth on a bases-clearing double by Chris Melillo. La Salle will play Hatboro-Horsham in the semifinals. The game is tentatively scheduled for noon Monday n

DESPITE COMING off a week in which they upset top 10 teams, neither La Salle nor Villanova cracked the Associated Press Top 25 poll that was released Monday. Villanova was 34th and La Salle was 39th and were among "others receiving votes. " Michigan was voted No. 1, followed by Kansas, Indiana, Florida and Duke in the top five. Complete polls on Page 35