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St. Joe's suffers another heartbreaker at home to SLU

02/01/2018, 1:00am EST
By Austin Petoillo & Josh Verlin

Shavar Newkirk (above) missed a late foul shot and committed a foul as St. Joe's lost yet another close game on Wednesday night. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Austin Petolillo (@AustinPSports) &
Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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The month of January has not been kind for Phil Martelli and the rest of the Saint Joseph’s Hawks.

In the span of three weeks, the Hawks have:

  1. Lost on a 30-foot buzzer-beating 3-pointer by George Mason’s Otis Livingston after the Patriots went the full 94 feet in five seconds;

  2. Seen a 16-point second half lead slip away at the hands of UMass in a three-point loss;

  3. Come back from down 12 at St. Bonaventure to go up four points before blowing their lead with under two minutes to go to lose by three;

  4. Been shut down defensively by Big 5 rival Penn, shooting 30 percent from the floor in a 67-56 loss that was worse than the final score indicated.

Add a 60-59 loss to Saint Louis on Wednesday night to the mix, after a final 15 seconds that’s going to have St. Joe’s knowing it left another win out on the table.

Saint Louis led by as much as 13 points in the first half and by as much as eight in the second half but both leads were shortly evaporated as just when it looked like Saint Louis had control of the game multiple times, the Hawks came storming back by hitting a barrage of three’s when they needed them the most.  

Then in the final few possessions, madness ensued.

After a Shavar Newkirk three cut the Saint Louis lead to just one, the Billikens dribbled the ball out of bounds and gave the Hawks a chance to take the lead with 13 seconds to go.

Newkirk then drove to the hoop and was fouled. After he made the first free throw to tie the game, he then missed the second -- and then compounded his issue on the other end, fouling Saint Louis guard Davell Roby on a pump-fake with three seconds to go, sending the Billikens guard to the line.

Roby missed the first but made the second. With three seconds to go, the ball was inbounded to St. Joe’s guard Nick Robinson who dribbled down the court and was unable to get a shot up, ending the game.
“The plan was to throw the ball to Shavar and Nick was supposed to be screening him on the outside,” St. Joe’s coach Phil Martelli said. “How it ended up in his hands and you don’t get a shot off, I don’t know.”

Martelli did have one final timeout to use in his pocket but elected not to use it because they had a “timeout” when a call was being reviewed to discuss strategy.

“Yeah I wasn’t open, Nick was open, Nick was supposed to get the shot,” Newkirk said.
That’s my fault, I didn’t make a free throw and I fouled, so I take complete blame.”

“We knew what was coming and we didn’t answer.” Martelli said.

The Hawks were led by freshman forward Taylor Funk who finished with 21 points and four threes. Newkirk finished with 16 points and six rebounds.

The loss dropped the Hawks to 9-12 overall and 4-5 in the Atlantic 10.

As of now, the Hawks find themselves in ninth place in the A-10 standings. If the Hawks held onto their leads against A-10 opponents, they would have a 7-2 record in the conference, which would put them in second place. Even one or two would make quite a difference in a usually-strong league suffering an overall down year.

“I would say ‘we are what we are,’’ we don’t really have an alpha, we don’t really have an alpha guy,” Martelli said. “We had one, but it’s Lamarr Kimble and he’s dealing with his injury, but we don’t have it in the guys who are playing, we don’t have that real dirty guy.”

Just like last season, the injury bug has bitten St. Joe’s again. Kimble, a junior guard and the team’s second-leading scorer a year ago, has missed all but the season opener after re-injuring his foot which will sideline him for the remainder of the season. Sophomore forward Charlie Brown, a 6-6 sharpshooter who was expected to be a starter and major contributor this season, has missed the entire season so far with a fractured wrist.

The bug caught another victim as senior forward James Demery sat out on Wednesday with a sprained ankle suffered in the Hawks’ loss against Penn on Saturday.

Demery was the leading scorer on the Hawks, averaging 17.6 ppg and the second leading rebounder with 5.5 rpg. Martelli gave no indication when the senior wing might return, but he did say that Demery was a game-time decision for the Saint Louis game.

Up next for the Hawks is a Big 5 matchup against La Salle on Saturday afternoon at 4:00 at Tom Gola Arena. The Explorers (9-13, 3-6), who have lost six of eight, suffered an 84-65 defeat at Davidson on Wednesday.

All of these close losses for St. Joe’s means that there is a recipe for victory, it’s just about closing out games.

“The only way we can do this is if everybody looks at themselves,” Martelli said. “There’s nobody that they’re afraid of -- and I’m not knocking them, [but] they’re very quiet.”

“We’re supposed to want it more, we’re supposed to get it, it’s our home court, we’re supposed to take it on our home court and we didn’t today,” Newkirk said. “Hopefully we get it together for the A-10 tournament.”


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