City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
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La Salle and St. Joseph’s will both play their second consecutive Big 5 games on Sunday, as the Atlantic 10 foes meet at Tom Gola Arena at 5 p.m.

The Hawks (15-3, 4-1 A-10) are one of the hottest teams in the conference, winners of 11 of their last 12 games, including a 75-60 win over Penn on Wednesday at the Palestra. The Explorers, however, are having quite a different season. With injuries and transfers decimating the roster, La Salle is 5-11 (1-4), but still proved it's capable of pulling an upset by beating Dayton two weeks ago.

Here’s three things to watch when the teams take the court on Sunday evening:

1. A relatively low-scoring game
There are two reasons why La Salle could be held to less than 60 points on Sunday: The Explorers want to play slow with their limited roster and St. Joe’s has been playing strong defense lately.

In the Hawks’ last two games, they have allowed just a combined 115 points, 55 to Fordham and 60 to Penn, two of the three lowest opponent totals for the season. St. Joe’s has given up just a total of 49 first-half points in those victories, going to the locker room with leads of 12 and 16 in those two contests.

“I thought they were would be some concern with the size we were going to play with this year,” head coach Phil Martelli said of his defense. “I’ve never really been concerned about defense, I thought that we could come up with a plan. Actually, I wanted to be a pressing team, we were pressing every day from August on, and we’re not there, we can’t get there. And take a lot of pride in not fouling, but we’ve never really fouled.”

As for La Salle, the Explorers are 320th in the nation in points per game, averaging 65.4. As the team’s bench has gotten smaller lately with injuries, the Explorers have tried to minimize possessions in games, and the team has averaged just 60.2 ppg in its last six games

2. An improved Tony Washington
It was expected for La Salle sophomore forward Tony Washington to have a larger role this season, but nobody expected him to have this much on his plate.

For the last three weeks, Washington has been the Explorers only player taller than 6-foot-7, and has handled all duties in the post for as many minutes as he can. Washington had one of his best games in a La Salle uniform on Wednesday against Temple. He was a perfect 7-of-7 from the field, scoring 16 points and adding 13 rebounds – six of which came on the offensive end.

La Salle coach John Giannini noted after the game that this experience is going to be invaluable for his players in the long run. We’re already seeing that pay off with Washington.

“And he was nowhere near as good as he could’ve been (against Temple), he had a number of breakdowns,” Giannini said. “So, absolutely (it’s paying off). Tony is so encouraging, to get a big guy who can play at this level as a sophomore and be productive against this level of competition on a big stage, it’s just terrific.”

3. A flourishing St. Joe’s point guard platoon
One of the main questions for the Hawks entering the season was who would start at point guard, sophomore Shavar Newkirk or freshman Lamarr Kimble?

The answer was Newkirk, who has started every game. But the point guard situation for St. Joe’s has been a promising one no matter who is on the floor.

Newkirk and Kimble had shared the position about as well as possible and both players look to have a firm grasp on running the offense. That was on full display Wednesday when the duo combined for 19 points and 11 assists against Penn.

For the season, Newkirk is averaging 8.0 points and 2.9 assists in 23.4 minutes per game, while Kimble has a 4.3/2.2/17.1 split on those numbers. It’s a balance that has worked well for the Hawks, and one Martelli is happy about.

“The competition is so healthy between the two of them,” Martelli said after the win against the Quakers when Kimble had 8 first-half points. “But (Kimble) is a point guard and in this situation, the point guards get the key to the house and they’ve got to make sure that, tonight, that’s the first time Shavar has been in foul trouble and Fresh was the difference in the first half. He’s making a lot of progress, and the two of them root for each other, which is nice to see. They’re not competing any longer, it’s now about us, not about them, the two of them.”