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Saint Joseph's flatlines against SBU in OT

02/22/2015, 10:00pm EST

By Garrett Miley

Garrett Miley (@GWMiley)
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The Saint Joseph’s locker room was dead silent.

Following a double figure, 70-60, overtime loss to St. Bonaventure, nobody had much to say. The Hawks turned the ball over a whopping 20 times and went over 11 minutes without a field goal from the end of regulation into overtime.

The team started out slow and never was able to play with the pace that they’ve been successful with at times this season.

“We were slow mentally, we were slow physically,” Saint Joseph’s head coach Phil Martelli said. “I tried to buy some time with different guys in the first half but I didn’t do enough for them in the second half and in the overtime.”

Sophomore sensation DeAndre Bembry missed consecutive front-ends of 1-and-1 foul shots in the final ten seconds of regulation and Saint Joseph’s shot just 8-17 from the charity stripe for the game.

After shooting 7-14 from the line on Thursday at Dayton, Saint Joseph’s has shown no improvement with their dismal foul shooting this season.

“Concerned?” Martelli said when asked about his concern with the foul shooting. “You might need a thesaurus. They’re my guys, but when you go 7-14 and 8-17 that’s not concerning. That’s just flat out embarrassing. If you have a suggestion like ‘go in and practice.’ Practice what? Practice broken strokes? That’s what it is….That foul shooting is embarrassing.”

Javon Baumann fouled out with 5:25 remaining in regulation after holding St. Bonaventure’s Youssou Ndoye without a made field goal.

Saint Joseph’s went without a field goal from the 7:27 mark in the second half until the 1:18 mark in overtime, over 11 minutes, when senior guard Chris Wilson knocked down a three pointer to get the Hawks within four points of St. Bonaventure.

Wilson had one of his better shooting performances of the season against the Bonnies, shooting 7-14 from the floor and tallying a game high 20 points. But Wilson knows he’s only measured by one set of numbers.

“It doesn’t matter when you lose,” Wilson said. “It’s all about the win to tell you the truth. Point guard, senior captain – it’s all about winning. I’ve got four games left and I’m trying to win games. That’s all that matters to me.”

Bembry shot 6-16 from the floor and finished with 15 points, six assists, six rebounds, but also turned the ball over an egregious six times.

“These numbers mean nothing,” Martelli said. “[DeAndre Bembry is] a special guy, he’s had a special year. Maybe it’s fumes, I don’t know. We saw this game last week against Fordham. I’ve got to do more for him but the numbers…it’s the same as the other night. The first thing the reporters asked him at Dayton was ‘Wow 23 points.’ It doesn’t mean anything.”

While Ndoye was held without a field goal by the Hawks frontcourt, he still finished with 11 points after shooting 11-12 at the foul line and finished a rebound shy of a double-double.

His partner in the frontcourt, Dion Wright, finished with a team high 17 points and 10 rebounds shooting 6-9 from the floor. The Bonnies had four players inducing Ndoye and Wright in double figures as Marcus Posley and Andell Cumberbatch finished with 16 and 15, respectively.

Saint Joseph’s sits at tenth in the Atlantic 10 standings (11-15, 5-9), treading water above Duquesne (9-16, 4-10) and the rest of the A-10 basement.

The Hawks take on UMass in Amherst, Ma. on Wednesday evening as they look to bolster themselves in the standings and make the A-10 postseason tournament in Brooklyn, NY.