Dec. 21, 2000
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - Bill Phillips scored a career-high 21 points and had eight rebounds as St Joseph's beat Western Kentucky 74-68 Thursday night.
Jameer Nelson added 18 points and eight rebounds and Erick Woods scored 11 points and five rebounds for St. Joseph's (7-3).
Chris Marcus scored 15 points and eight rebounds for Western Kentucky (6-4). Derek Robinson added 13 points and had a game-high five assists. Freshman Mike Wells posted his second double figure game in a row for WKU, tossing in 10 counters.
St. Joseph's led at the half, 38-32 on the strength of 60.7 percent shooting in the opening period.
Western battled back from the halftime deficit on 58 percent second-half shooting from the field. Raynardo Curry's lay-up at 13:49 left in the game gave Western a 52-50 lead. Phillips answered with a 3-pointer to put the Hawks back on top, igniting a 7-0 St. Joseph's run. The Hawks led the rest of the way, although two Marcus free throws at 0:19 pulled the Hilltoppers within two (70-68). SJU's Nelson then made good on four free throws in the final seconds to ice the win for the Hawks.
St. Joseph's outrebounded Western 33-28 and finished the night hitting 54.5 percent from the floor, the highest percentage by any Topper opponent so far this season and more than 16 percentage points better than five previous Topper opponents managed in Diddle Arena.
