More than a matchless-half-century aft(prenominal) La S anye claimed a national backup, a proud member of Philadelphia's tradition-laden ' man-sized 5' makes an NCAA run that surprises some, further not the Explorers
La Salle reserve/forward Rohan Brown (35) celebrates later on the Explorers beat the female childissippi Rebels during the unmatched-third round of the NCAA basketball tournament. La Salle advances to the sugariness 16 to contact Wichita disk operating system in the West region in Los Angeles.(Photo: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports USA TODAY Sports)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Now, Philadelphia's Big 5 is whole again.
For more(prenominal) than two retentive decades, La Salle fans fidgeted as Villanova, Temple, St. Joseph's and Pennsylvania snapped up recruits, won games and collected NCAA tournament bids. The Explorers drop down to obscurity, going one 13- category stretch without a sweet record, enduring 21 days without an NCAA invitation and largely slipping from the nation's radar.
Tom Gola? Lionel Simmons? They seemed — and were — long gone.
Sunday night, La Salle reannounced itself. A week after landing one of the tournament's last four at-large invitations, at the end of a grueling lead-game, five-day stretch that started in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio, the Explorers defeated Mississippi 76-74 to join the Sweet 16 for the number 1 time since the great Gola led them to back-to-back national championship games in the 1950s.
Just the sixth team to carry a No. 13 seed this far, La Salle faces ninth seed Wichita State in Thursday's West Regional semifinals in Los Angeles.
Cast the Shockers — who knocked out Gonzaga, the buy the farm seed in the West Region — as Cinderella if you will. entirely don't expect affirmation from a La Salle group steeled during the unbendable season in the impressively deep Atlantic 10 league. The Explorers took down Boise State, then Big 12 Conference co-champion Kansas State before beating Ole Miss.
"Absolutely not," says Ramon Galloway, the Explorers' leading scorekeeper and the only senior in their run acrossing rotation, who led them with 24 points Sunday. "I mean, it's a Cinderella story to the media and everybody that looks down on La Salle. Because ain't nobody had La Salle pleasing this much or climax this far in the dance. But for us, we already said by the whole stratum that we can play with everybody."
A team strengthened on a formidable collection of guards, one of them — petty(prenominal) Tyrone grace — re foreshadows coach John Giannini seeking him out in the moments after the Explorers' 80-71 win over Boise State in Dayton, their first tournament victory since 1990.
"When 'G' recruited me, the first thing he told me was, 'I think you're the missing piece we need to get us back to the tournament, to get us back to the national stage,'" Garland says.
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" later on we won … he came over and hugged me and said, 'This is what we've been waiting for.'"
It was Garland who hit the game-winning shot against Ole Miss with 2.5 consequences left. Tied at 74, he drove the lane and piano tossed the ball against the glass. It trickled in, igniting a celebration on the La Salle judicatory and among the knot of Explorers fans in the stands behind it.
Recruiting revived
Playing in Kansas City alter some broader symmetry. This is where La Salle basketball ascended to greatness more than half a century ago, leaning on Gola in winning the NCAA's 1954 championship and returning to the tournament final a year later. The Explorers fell in that one to Bill Russell and San Francisco.
This La Salle team's tierce wins in the past five days are more than the school had won in the tournament in the 57 years since their glory days. Simmons, still the third-leading career scorer in Division I history, led a brief revitalization when he carried La Salle to three consecutive NCAA appearances from 1988-90, and the Explorers claimed a quartern berth in five years in 1992.
Then, recruiting fell off. at that place was the ugliness of a couple of rape cases involving three players that led to the resignation of then-coach Billy Hahn in 2004. While the domiciliate of the Big 5 earned a combined 40 NCAA tournament berths, the Explorers were shut out and overshadowed.
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Giannini, who'd had success at Division triplet Rowan and Maine, succeeded Hahn in 2004 and de colorfuled an 18-win season two years later. There were some fits and starts before a breakthrough last season, when La Salle sacked 21-13 and reached the National Invitation Tournament.
The foundation for this season, and perhaps beyond, was set.
"I'm the only senior," Galloway says. "After this, things could bonnie get better."
Cracking the NCAA field was one thing. Advancing was another. The subsidization to Dayton meant an extra game on the front end, and winning it brought the Explorers to a matchup with bigger, stronger, fourth-seeded K-State — the Wildcats playing just up the interstate from their campus in Manhattan, Kan.
La Salle stunningly roared to a 20-point lead in the first half, let it slip away, then gutted out the final six minutes on tiring legs.
Forty-eight hours later, the Explorers took down 12th-seeded Mississippi. Tired? They shot around 57% from the field in a breathless second half in which the two teams were never separated by more than five points.
"In AAU (ball), you used to play three games in one day, and that was only, what, like three or four years ago," says junior guard Tyreek Duren, who hit the two justify throws that tied Mississippi with 1:07 left and finished with 19 points.
"So it's nothing to me. We've been playing since, what, November? When you've made it this far, you can't get deteriorate now."
Giannini deemed the extra game a positive, welcoming the Explorers' opportunity to forge out their nerves, get their legs and fall into a tournament rhythm.
It was just two years ago that Virginia Commonwealth played all the way from the First Four to the Final Four in Houston.
"'G' has made that statement a couple of times and told us that, if they can do it, there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to do it," Duren says. "We definitely look at that as motivation."
He and the other three featured guards arrived at La Salle in stages. Duren and Sam Mills signed in 2010. Galloway transferred from South Carolina a year later. Garland moved in from Virginia Tech after the fall 2011 semester.
Coming home
Galloway, a Philly kid, became the cornerstone.
Two of his brothers have landed in prison, one for robbery, the other for selling heroin and selling a stolen gun. At 16, he left their troubled neighborhood in Philadelphia to finish his last two years of high school in Florida. He signed with South Carolina, played two years with the Gamecocks, then headed back home.
The NCAA granted him a waiver to play immediately rather than wait the standard year after transferring. Galloway's father had been blinded when he was shot when Ramon was 2. His grandfather, Carlos Moore, was fighting liver cancer. Galloway had moved, in part, to be near them.
On the court, he has blossomed this season, averaging 17.2 points a game and hitting better than 40% of his three-pointers. He leads the team in assists and steals. He became the first La Salle player in sevensome years to be named first team all-Atlantic 10.
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"He was the correct player at the perfect time for us," Giannini says. "We underachieved a hardly a(prenominal) years ago, didn't have great chemistry, but we really desire our young players."
"We thought that if Ramon got that waiver, he might give us enough experience, enough depth, to make us a lawfully good team, quicker than what most people would think. And that's what happened.
"We've been to the NIT last year and the NCAA this year. We've broken a lot of streaks."
Materials taken from USA Today
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