City of Basketball Love

Jeff Griffith (@Jeff_Griffith21)
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Back on January 24, St. Joe’s met La Salle at 20th & Olney and dismantled the Explorers by a final score of 69-48 behind 17 points from star DeAndre’ Bembry and 15 from Isaiah Miles.

In the time since that game, La Salle hasn’t won once. The Hawks, on the other hand, hold only one loss since that victory over the Explorers, a ten-point defeat at the hands of St. Bonaventure.

In their second installment, this time as not only an Atlantic 10 game but also as the team’s designated Big 5 meeting, the script was nearly the same; St. Joe’s rode a stellar collective performance from Bembry and Miles to a similarly emphatic win, this time by a final score of 88-62, to finish 3-1 in Big 5 play.

A clear key in St. Joe’s upending La Salle was their limited depth; both head coaches recognized that not only the Hawks’ deep talent, but also the Explorers’ lack thereof, came largely into play Saturday night.

“I think that La Salle, really playing with a short deck, I feel for those guys,” said SJU head coach Phil Martelli. “You can see it in each of their games, they have a plan and they hit a wall. I thought tonight that we encouraged them to hit the wall. I thought we were aggressive.”

La Salle, on the other hand, finishes in last in the Big 5 standings with an 0-4 mark following this defeat. More notably, the Explorers dropped their tenth straight, keeping them all alone in the cellar not just in city play but also in the A-10 standings.

Their head coach, John Giannini, echoed similar thoughts to those of his counterpart, following the embarrassing defeat.

“We've had bad performances this year, but this was the worst one,” he said. “It came against a very good team, and it wasn't just us being bad. Of course they made us look bad as well. I'm devastated by our performance, but I won't be devastated come Monday, I'll be ready to beat St. Bonaventure."

“They look exhausted,” Martelli added. “John Giannini is a wonderful man, and those kids have played some good basketball earlier in the year and even last year.”

Bembry, who has obviously been a force for the Hawks all season averaging 16.9 a game, got off to a hot start with 11 points in the first 11 minutes. That early scoring boost powered SJU to a 25-11 advantage, and his 13 first-half points had the Hawks with a 40-27 lead at the break.

“It was good for our team, to not come out slow, just me getting open shots and getting points on the board for us got our blood flowing during the first half,” said Bembry. “That’s when everybody started getting shots and everybody started following after what I was doing. It just started us offensively and helped us transition to the defensive side.”

In the second frame, however, the hot hand flipped from Bembry to Miles; the forward who leads SJU in scoring with 17.4 ppg opened up the second frame with 11 points of his own in the first nine minutes, to help the Hawks blow up a 62-42 advantage at the midway point.

Miles would end up finishing with a game-high of 19 points, as Bembry went silent after picking up his fourth foul in the middle of the second half. James Demery also chipped in 17, most of which came after the result was no longer in doubt.

“It was good, it wasn’t their first time,” Bembry said of his teammates. “It was good to see again that I don’t have to be the only person, it helps our team so they can gain confidence for themselves.”

It was in that second half that the Hawks really began to assert their dominance over La Salle (5-18, 1-11 A10). Their 13-point halftime lead exploded to 20 in the first three minutes, and by the under-8 media timeout, the scoreboard read 71-44 in SJU’s favor.

St. Joe’s dominance, as a 17-point favorite entering saturday night, was in no way unexpected. The Hawks (21-4, 10-2 A10), an emerging contender for an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament, have now defeated each of their last three opponents in convincing fashion.

Their most recent victory came in convincing fashion, as SJU took down a George Washington team that holds a top-50 RPI ranking on the road by a final tally of 84-66.

In this instance, a less mature team could have easily grown complacent taking on a 5-win team like La Salle. With that said, the Hawks knew the importance of every game when a bid in the field of 68 is at stake this deep into the season.

“The players are really a lesson to all the amateur psychologists out there who all had this as a trap game,” said Martelli. “There’s some guys in that locker room that didn’t know we played Dayton on Wednesday...city games are very important to us and I thought we addressed it with a very mature approach. I’m proud of these guys.”

Now, going into that matchup with Dayton, the A10 leaders who sit just one game ahead of the Hawks, St. Joe’s will certainly need to ride the momentum from three straight commanding victories.

“Going into this Dayton game, it’s going to be the battle for the first place,” said Bembry. “We want to be in first place and definitely having a night like tonight will help us out.”