City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2023-24 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 6. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season click here.)

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Hagan Arena is buzzing on a late October afternoon. 

Between the 16 players on the Saint Joseph’s men’s roster — plus coaches, managers and support staff — there’s easily 35 folks surrounding the court. The gym feels alive, even with the seats empty and the bleachers pushed up against the wall. Drills snap from group to group, a 10-second stop for a quick pointer feeling like an overdrawn pause amongst the motion.

On the court is more talent than has been on Hawk Hill in quite some time. And all involved know it.

“It’s been a fun group to coach because the energy level’s been high,” head coach Billy Lange said, “but it’s also a challenging group — because the energy level’s so high.”

“We have high expectations for ourselves, but we just try to take it day-by-day,” fifth-year wing Cameron Brown said. “I like to tell the guys we’re going to have ups and downs all year, just be as good as we can by the end of the year.”

Lange had tough shoes to fill, coming in behind the controversial firing of longtime head coach Phil Martelli, removed in 2019 after 24 seasons as St. Joe’s boss, most of the roster leaving with him. The first two years were rough, 11 wins total. Year three matched that number, a step forward, though not exactly eye-opening. Then another five-win advancement last season, 16-17 the final record, teetering on the edge. 

Now, all the pieces are in place.

Don’t bother asking Lange about the raised expectations for this year’s group. His years at Villanova and Navy, plus his time with 76ers, have taught him that process weighs above all. From his first press conference to this year’s preseason interviews — in which he admitted he can be “boring” — he’s unwilling to budge from his own set party line, though he will admit this team has something his previous ones might not have.

“It’s the potential and the excitement of the group versus the expectation,” he said, “because we internally have always had high expectations and held each other — coach to coach, player to player, coach to player — on those level of expectations.

“We’ll never ever change our program ethos,” he added later.

Sounds like coaching BS. His players swear it’s not.

“It’s crazy because he says it to everybody but he really says it to us all the time,” Brown said. “Billy’s been saying the same thing for the five years now that I’ve been here, giving us the same message: be disciplined, detailed […] just playing our brand of basketball and if we do that then we should be able to win most games.”

The message might be the same, but the reality is different.

There’s a bona-fide star, junior guard Erik Reynolds, who averaged 19.6 ppg last year. His backcourt mate, Lynn Greer III, averaged 16.1 ppg over the final 17 games of the season and seems primed for a breakout junior year.

There’s plenty of experience, led by Brown. The 6-foot-6 wing is the longest-tenured member of the roster, coming to St. Joe’s from Eleanor Roosevelt (Md.) back in 2019. Brought in almost out of necessity as Lange scrambled to put a roster together, Brown’s started 100 out of 112 games in his four years, his 13.3 ppg and 6.0 rpg as a senior his best numbers to date. 

“This, to me, is what college basketball is supposed to be about,” Lange said. “It’s about a guy that commits to something and then sees it through. [...] I feel good that he has enjoyed his experience here at St. Joe’s and no one’s more deserving than him, he’s just a loyal, faithful guy.”

Seven of the top eight by both scoring and minutes are back. Five are in at least their third season at St. Joe’s. 

There’s height, led by 7-footer Christ Essandoko, the French big man who’s garnering plenty of buzz during the preseason after redshirting a year ago. He’s not the only 7-footer on the roster, and there’s size on the wings as well.

That’s before we even mention 6-9 power forwards Rasheer Fleming and Kacper Klaczek, returning sixth man Christian Winborne, and a talented freshman class led by Roman Catholic product Xzayvier Brown. 

Oh yes, there’s potential. And there’s some level of expectations. The Hawks were picked fifth in the A-10 preseason poll, their highest selection in years, but still a sign that the voters need to see it to believe it. 

Brown noted the alumni have been turning out more this offseason, eager to see a team that could actually break the program’s eight-year NCAA Tournament drought. 

“You just feel the support, you feel it on social media, you feel it out in public, ‘that’s the St. Joe’s basketball team, big things for y’all this year, big expectations,’” he said, “but I think we all embrace it and just pour it into the court so we don’t disappoint people.”

But Lange knows that’s months away, about 30 games in between to get there. And just because a team should be good, could be good, might be good, doesn’t mean they will be good.

“I’ve gone overboard with talking to them about ‘earned,’” Lange said. “If you’re not careful, they can hear all this chatter and feel like we’re there. Even if we were ‘there,’ you’ve still got to earn it, nobody gives you anything. Every game the other team’s trying to beat our brains in. 

“I’ve been talking about this since 2019, but now I’m going overboard on ‘earned.’”

At the very least, he’s got a group that can earn it.