City of Basketball Love

Rich Flanagan (@richflanagan33)

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PHILADELPHIA-Billy Lange feels it’s a disservice to look back on previous seasons and talk about carryover or things accomplished across different teams.

St. Joe’s took home the inaugural Big 5 Classic last season with Cameron Brown, Lynn Greer III and Kacper Klaczek fulfilling integral roles within the rotation, but this year’s group has eight new players on its roster. While familiar faces remain, Lange is the first one to stop the comparisons in their tracks as it’s a new year with a new team and a new set of circumstances and expectations.

“It’s about attacking,” Lange said. “That was last year’s team’s shared experience and when you go into that mindset, you get so tense that the better that you are and better your team is, the more vulnerable you are to be afraid to go after something. I told them I wanted to attack this game as a team as we have eight new players. This was a shared experience, win or lose, and we never look at it as defending.”

Lange wants his team to attack each game in the same way he wants each player to attack the rim or attack their defender when they catch the basketball.

Playing Texas at the Barclays Center in the Legends Classic or battling with Villanova in Hagan Arena on an early Tuesday afternoon in November, the St. Joe’s head coach expects his team to attack each possession the same way. On Saturday night, that mantra shown through as the Hawks put together one of their best performances of the season on a big stage.

Erik Reynolds II scored 16 of his 24 points in the second half while Xzayvier Brown poured in 21 points, six rebounds and four steals as St. Joe’s ran past La Salle, 82-68 to secure its second straight Big 5 title. The Explorers kept things close in the opening half as Demetrius Lilley provided 11 of his 12 points in the first 20 minutes. The Lower Merion product hit three three-pointers on the night but after injuring his right wrist a few minutes in the second half, the tide swung to St. Joe’s (6-3), and Brown and Reynolds led the way.

Brown hit a trey from the wing and later converted an and-one finish to put the Hawks up, 43-33 with 16:28 remaining. Reynolds hit a jumper from the elbow then a minute later fired a gorgeous pass to Justice Ajogbor for a two-handed dunk and it was all St. Joe’s at 50-37 at the 14:45 mark. The Hawks are 17-10 over the last two seasons when Reynolds and Brown score in double figures in the same game and as this backcourt has grown in that time, the target on the program has grown.

There was last year’s matchup at Kentucky where the dynamic tandem combined for 45 points or Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center where La Salle (6-4) simply didn’t have an answer for everything Reynolds and Brown threw at it.

Reynolds echoed Lange’s sentiments about attacking and why it’s important to constantly attack each game, possession, practice and opportunity.

“That’s what we want,” Reynolds said. “We don’t want anybody to look at us differently. I feel like we need to come out, embrace that and play our version of basketball.”

Rasheer Fleming stuffed the stat sheet with nine points, 10 rebounds and four assists and, while he didn’t have a night like his 22-point performance against Temple in last season’s Big 5 final, the 6-9 forward did enough to complement his guards.

He slammed one home to put the Hawks lead at 11 then Reynolds nailed another mid-range jumper and Dasear Haskins capped off his second and-one of the game to put St. Joe’s in front, 57-43 with 12:21 left to play. Brown hit a pair of free throws the next time down the floor and the Roman Catholic product, who has shown a knack for performing in big games, stated that he tried to stay present and, like Reynolds, follow his coach’s slogan of attacking when given the chance.

“I took pride in being in the moment,” Brown said. “That’s really hard because it’s easy to look ahead or live in the past but tonight I did a good job of playing the possession I was in. That trickled down to my teammates, too.”

The lead never fell below 13 from there and even grew to 17 points as Reynolds and Brown hit back-to-back three-pointers and the Hawks were ready to celebrate another Big 5 title and move into the next phase of the season with some crucial nonleague bouts such as College of Charleston and Virginia Tech on the horizon.

Fran Dunphy and La Salle have taken full advantage of the allure and intrigue of the Big 5 Classic, starting with last season’s buzzer-beating halfcourt bank shot by Khalil Brantley (Oklahoma State) and this year making it to the championship game.

However, the Explorers couldn’t find their rhythm on this night as they shot 36.6% from the floor and Corey McKeithan, who came into the contest averaging 19.2 points per game, was limited to 15 points on 6-15 shooting. Lilley provided the spark in the opening half, starting the La Salle scoring with a three then converting inside to cut the deficit to two at the 16:10 mark.

Freshman guard Deuce Jones kept things going after Lilley went down with 19 points, four boards and four assists. Twelve of his points came after halftime but Dunphy knew coming in that the Hawks would go as Reynolds and Brown took them. That’s precisely what played out.

“We didn’t do a good job of keeping Reynolds in front of us,” Dunphy said. “His speed and quickness are extraordinary, as is Xzayvier. He’s a really good basketball player and he made some really good plays. Those two guys are terrific.”

The Hawks had NCAA Tournament aspirations last season and their early success this year coupled with the play of Reynolds and Brown has them looking to fulfill those aspirations. Yet, Lange has driven home “the attack mentality” doesn’t allow his players to look ahead because if you’re not attacking the game in front of you, then you’re simply not attacking. It’s a motto that has permeated a change in the preparation of this team and the hope is it will steer it well moving forward.

“The attack mentality needs to happen all the time,” Lange said. “If we’re going to go down at the end of a game, let’s make it what it was. Environments like this force you to have to do it but we’ve got to do it all the time. It will always be grit, toughness and resilience. It will always be that mascot, and it will never change.”