PHILADELPHIA • In the rough-and-tumble world of the Atlantic 10 Conference, one game can make a world of difference.

That was the case for SLU on Wednesday night at Hagan Arena. With a win, the Billikens would stay a half-game behind Temple for the league lead and be in second place. With a loss, they'd be in a three-way tie for fourth and see at a lot of traffic ahead of them.

SLU got its two-game swing through Philadelphia off to a rousing start with a 72-60 win over St. Joseph's. With wins in three of their past four road games, and six of seven overall, the Billikens have bolstered their NCAA résumé and are right behind Temple at 19-5, 7-3. St. Joseph's, having its late run back into the A-10 race interrupted, is 15-10, 5-5.

Cody Ellis led SLU with 20 points, hitting six of nine 3-point tries, five of them in the second half. Brian Conklin had 13 points, Kwamain Mitchell had 12 and Dwayne Evans had nine rebounds, six of them in the first half, but he was limited to 17 minutes by foul trouble. SLU made 10 of 20 3-point shots, including seven of 10 in the second half.

"This is a great win," SLU coach Rick Majerus said. "It's a hard place to play; they had a nice crowd tonight. We competed pretty much on a possession-by-possession basis. ... We did a pretty job of taking care of the ball and getting ourselves set up to take good shots. We did a poor job by giving them too many offensive rebounds."

St. Joseph's shot just 39.2 percent from the field, and made just 25 percent of its 3's.

While Ellis' shooting stood out, Majerus was every bit as excited, if not more so, by Ellis' play on the other side of the ball.

"This for Cody was an unbelievable game," Majerus said, "because his defense was good. It wasn't the six of nine 3's, though without those shots, we don't win; it was his defense."

Ellis matched his career high, set in just his fifth game as a Billiken back in 2010 — possibly the peak moment of Ellismania — and also matched the most 3's he'd made in a game.

SLU ran into trouble again and again when it tried driving to the basket, but the team's 3-point shooting, which had struggled in the past three games, clicked in. With SLU protecting a 43-40 lead midway through the second half, Ellis hit back-to-back 3-pointers as SLU went up by nine. Mitchell then hit a 3 to give SLU a 52-40 lead with about 6 minutes to go.

Thanks to some SLU fouls, St. Joseph's cut the lead to seven, and Ellis hit another 3, this time off an out-of-bounds play. When Ellis hit a 3 with about 2½ minutes to play, SLU led 63-52 and looked safe.

Ellis had made just four of 17 3-pointers in SLU's past three games, and the Billikens as a team were shooting just 20.9 percent on 3's in that span. SLU's outside shooting rendered its up-and-down free throw shooting a moot point. SLU made just three of seven late in the game before Conklin restored order by making two with 34.6 seconds to play. Curiously, SLU sent St. Joseph's to the line on three straight possessions in the final 70 seconds, allowing the Hawks to pick up six points without the clock moving.

SLU started the second half almost like they started the first, opening up a seven-point lead at 39-32, and once again, St. Joseph's rallied to tie the game at 39-39. Ellis was fouled on a 3, made two of the shots, and SLU started to pull away.

In the first half, SLU took a 12-0 lead as St. Joseph's went almost 5½ minutes without scoring. Once the Hawks figured out how to score though, it was SLU's turn to go cold as SLU made just seven of its final 21 shots in the half. The Hawks finally caught SLU at 19-19. After that, St. Joseph's had three chances to pull ahead and couldn't do it before stepping ahead 23-21 on a short hook by Ronald Roberts.

SLU responded with a 5-0 run to retake the lead, with a short basket by Conklin and a 3 by Mitchell and then, after two St. Joseph's free throws, Rob Loe added another 3 to put SLU up 29-25, but a late basket by St. Joseph's sent SLU into halftime with a two-point lead.