City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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In its last exhibition before the real games start, the Saint Joseph’s men’s basketball team hosted Division III Widener on Friday night at Hagan Arena.

The Hawks pulled away in the second half for a 92-80 win, capping a 2-0 mark in their two exhibition games. 

Here are some notes and observations from Friday night:

Getting it Dunn
The story of the night came from the little guys. Those in attendance on Friday night were treated to a special performance by Pride graduate forward Dominic Dunn — and it was clear by the crowd reaction both St. Joe’s and Widener fans appreciated the effort.

Senior wing Steven Matlack (17 points, five threes) had the early hot hand for Widener, drilling a pair of threes and a fadeaway in the post for a quick eight points and an early Pride lead. Dunn, a transfer from Susquehanna, stole the show after that.

Dunn went 6-for-10 from the floor for 16 points in the first half, knocking down a trio of triples. He certainly knocked down a few open looks but most of his buckets were either contested or off some type of move to create space for himself. The scoring clinic continued into the second half as Dunn finished with 29 points and eight rebounds.

“Which one, the Kobe stepback, the KD fadeaway,” St. Joe's coach Billy Lange said of what impressed about Dunn. “When you have a fifth-year guy, he’s a college basketball player. There’s not a game you can’t put him in and he can’t figure out a way to be somewhat productive. Tonight, we’ve got a lot of young people out there guarding him. He probably made his easiest shots on them. So then when he takes the hard ones, he’s already made a few. I thought he was great. I thought they’re whole team was great.”

Dunn averaged 14.4 ppg and 5.3 rpg at Susquehanna last season, earning first team All-Landmark Conference honors. His addition is significant for Widener, which was recently picked third in the MAC Commonwealth preseason poll, and became even more significant when junior forward Matt Daulerio went down for the season with a knee injury.

Getting a chance to showcase his game on a Division I floor on Friday night will certainly go down as a career highlight for the 6-5 guard from Haddon Township, N.J.. Along with the Hawks and Widener fans, he had some buddies in their Susquehanna gear make the trip to Hawk Hill to support.

There were also some familiar faces on the opposing team. Dunn said he’s trained with Hawks’ freshman forward Rasheer Fleming, another New Jersey product, for several years now and played against Lynnn Greer frequently through his youth basketball career.

“My four years at Susquehanna, we never had the opportunity to play a Division I school,” Dunn said. “That was one of the things coach (Chris) Carideo pitched when he recruited me, and I thought it would be a pretty cool stage. I know a couple of the guys on St. Joe’s, so it was really cool to have an opportunity to play at this stage."

(We’ll have more on Dunn and Widener on CoBL next week)

Letting It Fly
The Hawks can let it fly from deep with the best of them. St. Joe’s was 25th in Division I last season with 26.6 3-point attempts per game, so Lange certainly gives his guys the green light to fire from deep. 

Widener packed in its 2-3 zone defense to try and take away the paint from the Hawks on Friday night.  The result was a 4-for-25 start from behind the 3-point line in the first half and Widener leading for most of the game’s first 10 minutes. 

The Hawks shot the ball more efficiently in the second half, finishing the game 9-for-39 from beyond the arc. Senior Cameron Brown and sophomore Erik Reynolds II combined to go 8-for-17 from deep, while the rest of the team finished 1-for-22 from deep.

St. Joe’s also got some scoring inside a little bit more in the second half (30 points in the paint compared to 20 in the first half), which was helped by 16 fastbreak points.

The Hawks attempted 34 threes against Towson last weekend and combined for 73 3-point attempts in their two exhibitions (36.5 per game) and converted them at a 24.7 percent clip. Eastern Kentucky led Division I last season with 32.6 attempts from deep per game. 

St. Joe’s attempted 30-or-more threes in five games last year with the most being 37, so the game Friday isn’t quite an outlier, just a reaffirmation that the Hawks are going to be putting up a lot of threes once again this season — though they hope to have a little more success from deep than in the exhibitions.

“Some of (the threes) could be maybe be turned down for an extra pass or a drive, but not a ton of them,” Lange said. “We attack the paint, and when you attack the paint you’re either getting to the rim or you’re kicking out. They were not going to let us get to the rim. That was clear. They went under every screen, so we tell these guys, ‘If you’re open you gotta shoot the ball.’ There’s probably a handful that you could take back, but that number wasn’t going to go from 39 to 20. Maybe it goes from 39 to 32. It’s a big part of what we believe in and a big part of how we play.”

What Cam Brown Do for You?
The Hawks may have had to sweat this one out a little if the senior guard Brown didn’t bring his ‘A’ game. He led the team with 22 points (8-for-13) and made five of his nine attempts from three. 

When Matlack and Dunn got hot again in the second half, Brown knocked down a three and took the ball to the bucket to quell the momentum swing.

Those are the types of moments you hope a senior guard can provide throughout the season, settling his team in big moments of games. 

“Honestly the way he guarded Dunn — and he still made some really hard shots — but I thought it’s like what a senior does,” Lange said. “Cam, since the second (COVID) pause of 2021, he’s shot the ball well in practice, and we needed it tonight. We needed every one of those five threes tonight.”

Brown reached double figures 12 times last season, including seven straight games in A-10 play, He averaged 8.3 ppg with a season-high of 17. He was a double figure scorer in six of 17 games as a sophomore, averaging 8.6 ppg and scoring a high of 21. 

His best scoring season actually came for a six-win Hawk team as a freshman when he had two games of 20-or-more, including a career-high 24, reaching double figures 17 times and averaging 10.1 ppg.

Brown went 3-for-6 for seven points in 19 minutes against Towson last weekend, so don’t expect him to put up 20 a night with some of the other weapons the Hawks have. But it would be quite the luxury to have if he can show off his experience in big moments like Saturday.

Read more on Brown in the preseason feature story on him here

— The St. Joe's rotation was very similar to Saturday’s exhibition against Towson with Reynolds, Greer, Brown, senior forward Ejike Obinna (six points, seven rebounds) and sophomore forward Kacper Klaczek (two rebounds, three assists) starting the game and freshman guard Christian Winborne (11 points, five assists) and freshman forward Rasheer Fleming (12 points, nine rebounds) the top options off the bench. Charles Coleman saw five minutes and Anton Jansson saw four minutes in the first half. Louis Bleechmore (Harcum College) also checked in for the first half for three minutes after not coming off the bench until the second half against Towson. He came back into the game with freshman guard Quin Berger for the last four minutes of the game.

— Following up a 21-point game against Towson, Greer continued to stay aggressive, finishing 6-for-14 for 15 points. The early indication through two scrimmages is he may score a little more than anticipated. Meanwhile Reynolds, who averaged 12.1 ppg, bounced back big in a big way from a quiet outing against Towson when he went 1-for-8 for four points. He finished with 21 points on 7-of-15 shooting and had a handful of electric plays. It looks like Reynolds, Winborne, Greer and Brown could all flirt with double figures on a regular basis, while Obinna (12.1 ppg) was a double-figure scorer a season ago.