St. Louis - Freshman point guard Kwamain Mitchell scored 17 points, including a career-best five 3-pointers, as Saint Louis edged Saint Joseph's 73-71 Wednesday night in a key Atlantic 10 Conference men's basketball matchup at Chaifetz Arena.
With the win, the Billikens move to 16-10 overall (13-2 at Chaifetz Arena) and 7-5 in the A-10. St. Joe's dips to 14-11 and 7-4 in the league.
Mitchell led four Billikens who scored in double figures. Kevin Lisch had 15, while Barry Eberhardt notched 14 on 6-of-8 shooting from the floor. Willie Reed scored 11 points and was 4-of-6 from the field.
The Billiken win spoiled a double-double effort from SJU leading scorer Ahmad Nivins, who registered game highs of 22 points and 11 rebound.
After playing from behind for the first five minutes of the game, the Billikens went on a 9-0 run to take a 12-6 lead with 12:30 to go in the first half. III banked in a jumper on the other end to ignite the rally and pull SLU to within one point of the lead at 6-5. That was Liddell's 1,500th point of his career. Lisch was then fouled on a 3-pointer and converted his three attempts from the foul line. An Eberhardt layin off a Liddell pass made it 10-6 Bills, and Liddell capped the run with a bucket in the paint for the 12-6 Billiken advantage.
Saint Joseph's came back and pulled within one on five straight points by Bryant Irwin, but Mitchell again buried a three and Conklin registered a basket in the paint to give the Billikens a six-point cushion at 17-11 with eight minutes remaining in the first half.
The two teams would trade baskets the rest of the first half, with SLU getting a 3-pointer from Mitchell to take a 22-17 advantage. But the Hawks responded with buckets from Nivins and Darrin Govens to pull to within three points at 22-19.
Eberhardt, Conklin and Reed all scored for SLU in the final three minutes of the frame, while Govens kept the Hawks in the game with four straight SJU points. A Reed basket with less than a minute left in the half gave the Billikens a 32-27 lead, but Nivins buried a jumper at the horn to pull the Hawks to within three at halftime at 32-29.
Both teams shot at or near 50 percent in the first half, with Nivins leading the way with a game-high 12 points at the break. Mitchell led the Billikens with nine points at intermission, with all of his baskets coming on 3-pointers.
Brett Thompson scored his first points of the game to start the second half, but St. Joe's constructed an 8-0 rally to take its first lead since early in the game, 38-36, with 16:30 left. Eberhardt snapped the streak with a layin, and later had another bucket in the paint to make it 42-40 St. Joe's with 14:10 remaining.
Over the next several minutes, the back-and-forth action produced three ties before SLU took a 49-46 lead with under 12 minutes to go thanks to a Lisch trey. The lead was made possible after Lisch dished an inside pass to Cassity who converted the layin to knot the score at 46-all.
A Cassity bucket and two free throws from Eberhardt made it 57-50 Billikens, but the Hawks' Chris Prescott converted a running layin and 3-pointer form the left side to pull within two points at 57-55. Mitchell gave SLU some breathing room with an NBA-range 3-pointer from the top of the key, but a resilient Hawks squad responded with a basket from Idris Hilliard to make it 60-57 with 5:30 remaining in the game.
After Prescott buried a pair of free throws to pull the Hawks to within one, Reed converted a traditional 3-point play after collecting an offensive board to give the Billikens a four-point cushion. But SJU again responded with a basket from Govens to make it 63-61 Billikens with 3:35 left.
With SLU clinging to a one-point lead with 1:10 to go, Mitchell buried a tough off-balanced 3-pointer, arguably his biggest shot of the night, to put SLU up by four at 68-64. After a Carr basket pulled the Hawks to back within two, Mitchell hit two big free throws to put SLU on top 70-66 with 29 seconds remaining in the game.
But, keeping with the back-and-forth theme for the night, SJU responded with a running layin by Govens with 18 seconds left to pull to within two once again.
Lisch followed suit and made to big free throws on the other end to put SLU up 72-68, but Garrett Williamson hit an off-balanced 3-pointer through two SLU defenders to pull the Hawks back to within one with less than five seconds remaining.
But with 1.2 seconds left, Lisch would hit one-of-two free throws, and a desperation 3-pointer from Nivins at the horn sailed wide to deliver the 73-71 victory.
The Billikens return to action this Saturday when they host No. 25 Dayton at Chaifetz Arena. Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m. All Billiken fans are encouraged to wear blue as part of the second-annual Blue-Out festivities.
