City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Aleah Snead knew she was close. 

As the final minutes were running off the clock in Saint Joseph’s 74-53 Big 5 win over Penn on Monday night at the Palestra, Snead was just two assists away from her first collegiate triple-double. And while the Hawks’ coaches knew she was close, Snead didn’t need them to tell her, and she made sure her teammates like Gabby Casey and Jill Jekot knew it too. 

“I just look up (at the scoreboard) myself,” she said with a laugh. “The last three minutes, it’s like, Gabby, Jill, I’m going to pass you the ball, just shoot it.”

A few late tries didn’t fall for Snead’s teammates, but she still capped off an impressive night, finishing with 18 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists, five steals and two blocks as St. Joe’s won its Big 5 opener in impressive fashion.

It’s hard to argue that Monday night’s performance was the best of Snead’s college career thus far. Her first collegiate double-double saw her set new career bests in boards and assists while tying her high in steals and blocks, continuing a strong run of play for the Philly native after a slow first couple games of the season. 

“You’ve got to let the game come to you, and that’s my first double-double, so that’s what I’m proud of,” she said afterwards. “The past couple games I haven’t really been rebounding as much and my position coach [Ashley Prim] has been on me about that and getting in there and stop watching, and I think I did that tonight.”

A 5-foot-11 standout out of Penn Charter, Snead played in 28 games as a freshman with the Hawks, averaging 2.4 ppg and 1.6 rpg while getting her first two collegiate starts. She played a much more prominent role a year ago, averaging 6.4 ppg and 3.9 in 34 games (six starts) and earning A-10 Sixth Woman of the Year as a sophomore. 

That set up a junior season where it was expected Snead would step into a starring role, and thus far she’s delivered. After Monday night’s win, she’s second on the Hawks (5-1, 1-0 Big 5) in both scoring (13.2 ppg) and rebounding (5.5 rpg), shooting 52.6% from the floor and 7-of-13 from the 3-point arc, with a team-high 25 assists (4.2/game).

Over her last four games, Snead is averaging 18.5 ppg while making 66.7% of her shots, as St. Joe’s beat Cincinnati and Columbia while losing to Penn State.

A left-hander, Snead’s at her best rolling to the rim, where her teammates have learned how to get her the ball in perfect timing for her to pop it up off the glass and in. She’s also become a much better perimeter threat and shot-creater with the ball in her hands, knocking down a couple mid-range jumpers against Penn as well. 

Her ability as a play-maker from the wing or in the middle of the zone makes her an even greater threat. 

“She’s a tough matchup because you have to put a ‘4’ on her, we had to put one of our posts on her,” Penn coach Mike McLaughlin said. “She’s really grown. She’s got better poise than she’s ever had, credit to her, but she’s a tough matchup. If we didn’t have to go against her, I’d say it’s pretty cool watching her get better and better and better.”

“She always was really a smart player, understood passing and moving,” St. Joe’s coach Cindy Griffin said. “Sometimes you take advantage of guys that move, she moves without the ball really really well and she moves into space really, really well [...] she’s stepping up for us, big-time.”

Snead paced four Hawks in double digits in the win. Jekot, a Penn State transfer, scored 13 points on 5-10 shooting; graduate student Faith Stinson scored 13 and grabbed three rebounds, and the Hawks’ leading scorer Gabby Casey scored 12 points with seven assists and six rebounds on 4-11 shooting. 

Emily Knouse (Archbishop Wood) popped off the bench to hit a couple 3-pointers and Kaylinn Bethea (Penn Charter) scored her first collegiate points with a pull-up jumper in the first half, adding a couple free-throws in the game’s final minute.

As a team, St. Joe’s had 22 assists on 28 buckets, going 28-of-53 (52.8%) from the floor and 34.8% (8-of-23) from 3-point range. 

Trailing by one just past the midway point of the first quarter on Monday, St. Joe’s closed the opening period on a 13-0 run to take the lead into double digits for the first time. Penn scored 11 of the first 16 points of the second quarter to get the margin back down to six, but a pair of 8-0 Hawks runs got the gap back up to 17 before the half; it stayed in double digits the rest of the way.

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Quakers still figuring out offensive issues

It was not a pretty game for the Penn offense, which shot 20-of-51 (39.2%) overall and 4-of-21 (19.0%) from deep, turned it over 17 times and generally struggled to get good looks against the Hawks’ defense. 

That’s become a recurring problem for Penn, which hasn’t scored 70-or-more points against a Division I opponent this year and hasn’t cleared 60 in three of their five games against D-I opponents. The Quakers are shooting just 28.9% from the 3-point arc and only have two players barely averaging double figures in senior wing Simone Sawyer (10.3 ppg) and junior center Tina Njike (10.0 ppg, 6.7). 

“I think it’s a little bit of our shot selection,” Sawyer said. “I think the ball gets stuck at times and the shot clock gets down and we have to go 1-on-1, and we don’t take great shots, so that’s something we have to work on.”

Two players expected to be the Quakers’ leaders, junior guard Mataya Gayle and sophomore Katie Collins, have also both been off to slow starts. Gayle, a 5-8 guard, averaged 13.3 ppg in 56 games between her freshman and sophomore years; she scored six points against St. Joe’s and is fourth on the team in scoring (7.2 ppg). Collins, a 6-2 forward, is averaging 9.7 and shooting 35.6% from the floor, down from 10.0 ppg and 43.6% her promising freshman campaign; she managed five points and four rebounds against St. Joe’s.

The biggest bright spot has been Sawyer, whose previous career-high average was 6.8 ppg as a freshman and junior. The 5-11 guard is shooting 46.2% from the floor and 35.0% from the 3-point arc, averaging 5.8 rpg to boot. 

“This is the best basketball Mo has played since she’s been at Penn,” McLaughlin said. “She’s rebounding the ball at a level that she never has, she defends, plays hard. When you talk about progress, she’s really taken a big step forward.”

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Stinson filling her role for St. Joe’s

Six games into the season, Stinson is figuring out exactly what she needs to do for the Hawks. And it’s a familiar setting. 

“Getting easy buckets when I can, shooting those kick-out threes, being a good passer, setting good screens for my teammates to get them open,” she said. “I feel like it was kind of my role last year and it’s the role I’ve been taking on this year as well.”

The 6-2 former IU Indy forward averaged 9.2 ppg and 5.3 rpg last season with the Jaguars, her best career numbers to date. Her 13-point effort against Penn pushes her into double-figure scoring through six games at 10.3 ppg, and she’s doing it on 45.6% from the floor, with 10 assists against only four turnovers, the lowest number of any of the Hawks’ starters. 

She came into the St. Joe’s program with the expectation that she would bring stability — if not exactly the same level of production — to the Hawks’ frontcourt following the graduation of Talya Brugler and transfer of Laura Ziegler, and she’s done just that thus far. Stinson’s game against Penn was her fourth in double figures already this season, and she’s learning how to play off the Hawks’ talented group of guards and wings. 

“I feel like I’ve adjusted pretty quickly in the summer,” she said. “Great teammates, I feel comfortable in my role, and they instill confidence in me every day, which makes it easier for myself to go out there and play.”

What Stinson is also learning is what it would mean for her teammates, a largely Philly-area contingent, to win a Big 5 title. The St. Joe’s women play at Drexel on Sunday, the winner of that game advancing to the Dec. 7 championship game at Villanova’s Finneran Pavilion. 

“It’s an honor to be a part of St. Joe’s and play in the Big 5,” Stinson said. “It’s not taken lightly, and we’re excited for the next two games that we have.”

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Up Next

Saint Joseph’s (5-1, 1-0 Big 5) plays at Drexel on Saturday (2 PM)

Penn (4-2, 0-2 Big 5) plays at St. Thomas (Tex.) on Friday (1 PM)