Rhode Island ends St. Joe’s season with hard fought 87-76 win

There may not have been any points bigger in the last four years than Lamonte Ulmer’s 1,000th.

The senior forward’s historic tally came when his team needed it most, cleaning up a missed free throw and laying the ball in to push the lead back up to nine and all but clinch an 87-76 victory for the Rams over St. Joe’s. The win sets up a date between the Rhode Island and St. Louis on Friday in the A-10 Quarterfinals in Atlantic City and keeps their dreams of an NCAA berth alive.

“I’m disappointed in the result,” said St. Joe’s head coach Phil Martelli. “I’m happy for our players that they go the chance to experience postseason play, and really maximize the effort, and we still leave not good enough.”

Oh, when we were young! Revisiting our preseason predictions

Ok, I’ll take the blame: I was responsible for ranking the men’s Atlantic 10 basketball field in our Basketball Preview way back when in November. With the A-10 Tournament looming, what better time than the present to simultaneously pat myself on the back while kicking myself  over the path taken by my prognostications? All comments, insults, and compliments (especially compliments) are welcomed.

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Dayton

Our prediction: 1

Final place: 7

It’s hard to figure where Dayton’s season went awry. They started out 13-3—with a win over a ranked Georgia Tech and two narrow losses at other ranked opponents in New Mexico and Villanova. But the Flyers stumbled down the stretch, going 6-8 in their final 14 games, including losses in five of their last seven outings. Defense’s penchant for keying in on Chris Wright successfully has limited his ability to take over games. He hasn’t been the superstar he’s needed to be, and the supporting cast has been unspectacular.

Xavier

Our prediction: 2

Final place: 2

Bull’s-eye! I’ll take any victory I can get. It didn’t look that way early on, with the Musketeers stumbling out of an extraordinarily tough nonconference slate with an 8-5 record. But this young squad, led by A-10 scoring champ Jordan Crawford and the rapid maturation of Jason Love into a premier big man, has meshed down the stretch. They’ve crept into the Top 25 thanks to a seven-game win streak, and could end up with a high seed in the Big Dance if they can buck their trend of poor showings in the A-10 Tourney in recent history.

Hawks earn spot in Atlantic 10 Tourney with win over La Salle

On the day in which they were honored at half court prior to tip-off, St. Joe’s seniors delivered a dominant performance, ensuring they would be college basketball players for at least one more game.

Garrett Williamson led all scorers with 18 points, including 10-10 from the free throw line, and Darrin Govens added 14 first half points and 17 on the game to lead the Hawks to a 74-59 win.

“We approached this game like a playoff game,” Williamson said. “It was either win or go home. I feel like we came out here with a mature approach, real methodical.”

The Hawks’ win assured them a spot in next week’s Atlantic 10 Tournament. They earned the 12th seed thanks to UMass’ upset of Rhode Island, which slotted the Minutemen into 11th in the final standings, and officially put an end to the Explorers’ season. The Hawks will likely travel to fifth-seeded Rhode Island for their first round game.

St. Joe’s-La Salle LIVE game blog

5:52- And there he is!! Martelli calls time with 57.6 and inserts Brown for O’Brien, much to the delight of his sizable cheering section in the crowd. He manages a rebound, but misses the put back before Martelli calls timeout to get his two senior starters out for a standing ovation. The Hawks run out the clock, the ball in Brown’s hands, with a 74-59 win and a berth in the A-10 Tournament. Postgame comments momentarily.

5:50- Jones does it again with a stop-and-go move that gives him a lane to the hoop to stretch the lead to 16. Williams answers with a bucket, but Govens gets hacked by Mekongo, his fifth foul, and makes one of two to restore a 15-point spread. I hear chants of “WE WANT C.J.”!

5:49- La Salle commits its 12th turnover of the night as Giannini turns to his assistants and claps in resignation. Murray’s three-point attempt doesn’t help matters, and sends the normally boisterous coach to take a seat for one of the first instances all night.

5:46- Williamson hits two free throws out of the break, and Grant nearly strips Jones after Mekongo misses a three. But Jones instead heads to the line, and hits both to stretch the lead to 14, the biggest margin of the day, 71-57.

5:43-  JONES TO THE BUCKET! He hits a lay-in driving right to left, up and under a defender to move the margin to 10 at 67-57 with 4:09 to play. As Bill Raftery would say, “a little early onions from the youngster!”

He’s got 12 off the bench, one of four Hawks in double-figures today. The score stays that way into the final media timeout with 3:39 to play.

Also, in Amherst, the Rams hold a slim 50-47 lead. And the Explorers’ postseason hopes.

For more play by play, click here…

St. Joe’s-St. Louis LIVE game blog

10:00- The Billikens have been anything but a good luck charm for St. Joe’s, who dropped their fourth straight game against St. Louis, 56-52.

St. Louis held the Hawks to just 20 points in the second half and under 30 percent shooting to seal the win at the Hagan Arena.

“We’re the youngest team in America, so the kids did a great job with that,” said St. Louis head coach Rick Majerus, who’s team has been in Philadelphia since last Thursday, and may not leave town until at least Friday due to the inclement weather. “We did a lot better the second half and really manned up. I thought our defense was good.”

Cody Ellis led the Bills with 13 points, including three three-pointers. Christian Salecich had 11 points, nine of which came in the first half, while Kwamain Mitchell and Willie Reed chipped in nine and seven, respectively. It’s the Billikens’ second straight win in Philadelphia after they took care of business at La Salle over the weekend.

Garrett Williamson led the way for St. Joe’s with 12 points. Todd O’Brien recorded his second career double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds despite foul trouble throughout, and Idris Hilliard was also in double-figures with 10, all in the first half. Darrin Govens added eight points and four assists on an atrocious 3-13 shooting and 1-5 from three.

The St. Joe’s offense faltered for much of the game, including four missed lay-ups in the first that could have added to their halftime cushion, and couldn’t respond to St. Louis’ best punch.

St. Joe’s-Richmond live blog

8:51- Geriot attempts to draw a charge on Govens (he has taken 17 already this year; I just had to get that stat in somewhere), and sends him to the line for one of two with 13.7 left. The Hawks don’t foul on the other end, and the Spiders leave the Hagan Arena with a 68-58 win. Post game wrap in just a bit…

8:49- Anderson converts one from the line as Irwin fumbles a pass out of bounds for the symbolism play of the night, and Hilliard sends Smith to the line on the other end with 18.6 left.

8:48- Crosgile makes two of three, but it’s window-dressing at this point as the Hawks still trail 66-57 with under 40 ticks left.

8:46- Govens gives the ball away again in something that was close enough to the rim that we’ll call it an airball instead of a turnover (looked more like a dry heave with a basketball), and Butler hits a jumper after milking the shot clock all the way down. Bulter fouls Crosgile behind the arc on the other end for his fifth foul, but he departs with 15 points (the same total as in ’08).

8:45- Bulter turns it over, but Govens returns the favor for the 258th time tonight, and Anderson hits a jumper in transition to quiet the Hawks for the time being and send a few of the crimson and gray clad faithful towards the exit. Richmond is up nine with 1:40 to play.

8:43- Williamson earns a trip to the line, but can only convert one of two. Lead’s down to seven.

Turning a corner, but to where?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. They don’t mention what happens on instance number seven.

That’s the position many St. Joe’s fans are in now (thought the estimate of seven is very low) after falling into the oh-so-familiar trap of buying into the heightened expectations that a handful of consecutive wins creates.

The loss to UMass was especially tough to swallow, as will be most from here on out, because the win over Dayton gave everyone a tantalizing view of what the Hawks are capable of. Yes, last night’s effort was tempered by the fatigue of three games in five days, something largely out of the team’s control. But the loss still stings, and you can’t help but think that if the circumstances were different, the result might have been as well.

After the Penn game, I went though a checklist of things that needed to happen for the St. Joe’s streak to continue. Here’s the report card from UMass:

Minutemen dump tired Hawks, end three-game winning streak

A third game in just five days finally caught up with St. Joe’s, as they had their three-game winning streak stopped at the hand of UMass, 87-80.

Ricky Harris led all scorers with 23 points, and the Minutemen pulled away thanks to four second-half threes by Freddie Riley.

“[It’s] very disappointing,” St. Joe’s head coach Phil Martelli. “We disserve better because we had been playing better. We looked tired, and we thought tired. We didn’t fight through when we had chances in both halves. We worked our tails to get back and get the lead in the second half and we step off a known three-point shooter [Riley] for them to tie it.”

Garrett Williamson, ’10, led the way with an impressive line, highlighted by a double-double of 16 points and 10 assists. He also swiped six steals, three bocks, three rebounds, and no turnovers.

“We got a team like that and we were on the ropes with them, but we never got that knockout punch.” Williamson said. “We never really had that surge of stops and good possessions on offense that we’ve had these last few games.”

There goes Dayton, now what?

Who ever came up with the idiom “once bitten, twice shy” was never a St. Joe’s basketball fan. Keep that in mind as I jump in my inner tube and float out into the shark tank that is optimism about this program.

Last night’s win over Penn puts the Hawks at 8-11 with 11 games to play. And a crazy little thought popped into my head on the walk from the Palestra to 30th Street Station: what does this team have to do to salvage a .500 season?

The obvious answer, which hit me not unlike a splash of water from the 42 bus heading up Walnut Street, is to go 7-4. But is that something that this team, who looked dead in the water and could have folded after losing eight of nine and were on their way to another loss at halftime at the hands of Fordham at home, is capable of?

Here’s what’s left for the Hawks:

Hawks stay hot in rout of Penn

It started out dicey, but by the end of the night the Hawks made no mistake in romping over Penn, 85-64. The win is their third in a row and just their second away from the Hagan Arena all season, joining their victory over Boston College at the Paradise Jam in the US Virgin Islands.

The game got off to a nervy start as neither team was able to impose their will offensively, and the teams were deadlocked at 27 with 5:41 left in the half. Compounding it for the Hawks was foul trouble for Garrett Williamson, ’10, who had to sit the last 9:45 of the period with two fouls.

But even without their senior marathon man, the Hawks mounted a charge into the halftime break, and finished with a 13-0 spurt to take a 40-27 edge.