City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
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Saint Joseph’s can never get too far away from NCAA Tournament talks. The Hawks’ color broadcaster is the original bracketologist, after all.

But Joe Lunardi and many others who forecast the madness of March have had plenty of reasons to bring up St. Joe’s this season.

The Hawks enter their Saturday contest at Rhode Island (6 p.m./CBS Sports Network) winners of 13 of their last 14 games, and at 17-3 (6-1 Atlantic 10) were listed as the first team left out of the field in Lunardi’s latest projection of the 68-team field. Phil Martelli is completely fine with fans and followers of the program clamoring all they want about the team potentially getting back to its second NCAA Tournament in three seasons. He just doesn’t want his team to participate in those conversations.

That’s why when the Hawks trailed UMass by a point at halftime on Wednesday, Martelli didn’t remind his team about all the success it has had in the last two months. He spoke instead of their one failure.

“He definitely told us to remember the VCU game, and I think that motivated all of us because we all know how we let that one go, and we still think about that one,” senior forward Isaiah Miles said after Wednesday’s 78-70 triumph over the Minutemen. “So we didn’t want to have another one of those VCU games.”

Entering the weekend, the Hawks sit in third place in the A-10, and that VCU loss is the reason why. St. Joe’s blew a 13-point lead in the final seven minutes against the Rams on Jan. 5 – the only regular season meeting the team’s will have this season. Dayton, which suffered its only conference loss at La Salle earlier this month, sits between VCU and St. Joe’s at 7-1.

There are a handful of teams at 4-3 in the conference (including Rhode Island), but for now, it’s looking like a three-team race for the top spot in the A-10. And all three of those teams are also racing for a spot in the NCAA Tournament. With it comes excitement, talk and speculation – none of which Martelli wants a part of.

“If you throw rocks at a stray dog, you end up getting caught by the stray dog. The stray dog is the noise,” Martelli said.  “ ‘What do you think? I saw you’re on the bubble?’ It’s January. Who cares? It doesn’t mean anything. I’m all for it – the fans can do all they want. But these guys cannot get caught in the noise.”

The Hawks have not left Philadelphia since a road game at George Mason on Jan. 13 (they played Penn at the Palestra and La Salle at Tom Gola Arena), but three of their next four games will come on the road. That includes Saturday’s game, and the Hawks are looking to repeat a Jan. 10 performance when they beat the Rams, 72-67, at Hagan Arena.

Would another win put the Hawks in Lunardi’s next bracketology or pick them up some votes in Monday’s Associated Press poll? Perhaps, and it would be a nice reward, Miles said. But he knows the team will have to earn whatever it gets in the next month-and-a-half.

“We have been a little under the radar, and some national attention would be good, we’ve definitely earned it,” Miles said. “But going under the radar is a good thing as well, we don’t want to be as hyped up as some other teams are.

“If we keep playing the way we’re playing, we’ll get some national attention.”