City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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A season full of promise for the Saint Joseph’s men ended Wednesday night with a game that mirrored the Hawks’ season.

There were promising stretches, impressive individual performances, and some real moments of growth — but down the stretch, it was the University of Alabama-Birmingham that made the plays it needed as St. Joe’s went cold. 

And so for the second year in a row, the Hawks’ season ended with a first-round loss in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), the Blazers walking out of Hagan Arena with a 69-65 decision. 

Suffice to say, the NIT wasn’t the place the St. Joe’s men wanted to be this time of year. Coming off a first-round NIT loss last season, with most of the key pieces back and a year older, expectations had the feel of NCAA Tournament-or-bust coming into the season. An early-season loss to Central Connecticut State was an ice-water bucket of reality to the face, but wins over Villanova, Texas Tech and Virginia Tech all before the year turned to 2025 were proof that the Hawks had what it took to get back to March Madness for the first time since 2016. 

Instead, St. Joe's lost five of its first nine Atlantic 10 games — three by five points or fewer — to end its at-large hopes, then lost to George Mason in the A-10 semifinals. The NIT came calling, offering a home game and one of four No. 3 seeds in the NCAA”s annual secondary postseason tournament, but that didn’t seem to be much consolation for those in attendance on Wednesday.

“If you told St. Joe’s fans at the beginning of the year that they would lose in the first round of the NIT again, they would say it’s unacceptable,” one fan sitting courtside was overheard saying to another. 

The Hawks faithful were just about silent at the final buzzer, the only cheering coming from an excited group of 100-or-so UAB fans in the visitors’ section behind their bench. 

SJU coach Billy Lange, who took over a program that needed a full restart following the dismissal of legendary coach Phil Martelli, has built from a team that won just six games in his first season to one that’s won 43 games over the last two seasons. The former Villanova and 76ers assistant and Naval Academy head coach was no different in his post-game press conference than any other time, staying outwardly optimistic 

“I love the competitive nature of every player, I love the growth of some of the guys on the team,” he said when asked if there was any disappointment when it came to the team’s finish matching last year’s. “That part I’m happy with, I’m glad we had a chance to play in the postseason, it means there’s a level of consistency right now, we played well enough to win this game against a really good team, so that hurts, that hurts. 

“But my perspective is both. I can think a little bit about the short-term, I’m upset that we lost. But when I look at globally, where are we, I’m like, we’ve become a good defensive team, we’ve got some great defensive guys coming back next year, I like the growth of a lot of our younger guys, the experience they picked up. That part of it I have to kind of feel good about.”

The loss also marked the end of Erik Reynolds II’s career on Hawk Hill. The program’s all-time leading scorer, Reynolds finishes his four years in a St. Joe’s uniform with with 2,175 points, having passed previous record-holder Jameer Nelson — sitting courtside on Wednesday night — earlier in March. 

He scored just seven points in his final game on 3-of-11 shooting, finishing a year where he shot right around 30% from 3-point range after making 38% each of the previous two years. Sophomore guard Xzayvier Brown, who led the way with 21 points against UAB, was more focused on who his backcourt mate was instead of his production. 

“He’s just a great person,” Brown said. “All-time leading scorer, but [...] if you asked me about him, that’s probably the last thing I would say. He’s just a great person, great teammate, and he will be missed, for sure.”

St. Joe’s broke open what had been a tit-for-tat contest with a 16-6 stretch that put the hosts up 49-41 with 14 minutes remaining. But they went cold down the stretch, finishing the game 24-of-72 (33.3%) from the floor and just 7-of-33 (21.2%) from 3-point range, and UAB closed out the game out-scoring its hosts 28-16 to pull out the win.

St. Joe’s had a good look at a game-tying shot, Reynolds’s leaner from 18 feet looking like it might drop with under 10 seconds to play, but Rasheer Fleming touched the ball while it was over the cylinder. A lengthy replay confirmed the offensive goaltending call; UAB took back over with 4.8 seconds on the clock, a pair of foul shots with two seconds remaining both the game-sealers and the game’s final points.

“I think Erik’s [shot] was going to go in,” Lange said, “but it did hit the rim, I think it was two times, so you can’t fault ‘Sheer for doing that.”

The Hawks struggled on the glass against a tall, physical Blazers squad. UAB, which is the fifth-best offensive rebounding team in the country, won the rebounding battle 52-38 behind the efforts of senior forward Yaxel Lendeborg, the Pennsauken (N.J.) product leading his team with a 16-point, 17-rebound double-double. 

Yaxel Lendeborg (3) was a problem for St. Joe's at both ends. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

A 6-9 forward, Lendeborg entered play Wednesday night averaging 17.7 ppg and 11.0 rpg for the Blazers, who lost in the American Athletic Conference championship game to Memphis on Sunday. The two-time AAC Defensive Player of the Year and all-league selection made it two dozen double-doubles on the season, doing so with several NBA scouts watching from behind the scorer’s table. 

“He goes for 16 points and 17 rebounds and that was probably the worst that he’s played in over a month,” UAB coach Andy Kennedy said. “I was a little bit surprised that he wasn’t even an honorable mention All-American with the numbers he’s put up. He’s a walking double-double and we lean on him heavily.”

What’s ahead for the offseason is of no surprise to anybody in the college basketball world. The Hawks will graduate Reynolds and graduate student forward Justice Ajogbor, the one-year ‘rental’ from Harvard who finished with a career-high eight blocks against UAB. 

Lange and his staff will have to spend the next few weeks seeing if anybody from their roster hits the transfer portal, which they’ll use to supplement the current roster as well as committed 2025 prospects Owen Verna and Austin Williford, a pair of guards who will supplement Brown and Derek Simpson in the backcourt.

“We’ve done a fairly good job of keeping our guys, I’m not in any sort of panic mode about that,” Lange said. “I like the foundation of guys that we have that have been in the program that continue to care about the culture and the place. It’s like a renovation: are there some things that you can add from the portal that fit, but I don’t want it to be derailing all the things that are there. 

“We’ll be active in it, we’ll be selective in it, and I think we understand what we need. It’s not so much about replacing people as making sure that you’ve got the right fits to fill some voids that you have like everybody else does.”