City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
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There was somewhat of an anxious environment Saturday evening at Hagan Arena.

As the fans were able to applaud some runs and buckets from their Hawks, they kept waiting for their team to breakthrough and take over against Duquesne. That never happened.

The Dukes spoiled St. Joseph’s senior night and Phil Martelli’s second bid for a 400th win with a 78-70 victory in the teams’ regular season finale. It took the Hawks out of a potential tie for first place in the Atlantic 10, and they wrapped up the regular season 24-7 and 13-5 in conference play.

For the first time this season, though, St. Joe’s has lost two consecutive games, as they dropped a 98-90 contest on the road at St. Bonaventure on Wednesday. The team is still likely to make the NCAA Tournament, though this week certainly pushed it closer to the bubble.

St. Joe’s will still be one of the top four seeds in the Atlantic 10 Tournament and start play on Friday, but it has issues to fix before then.

“We just have to identify these Achilles heels and we have to clean them up sooner rather than later, because there aren’t a lot of laters left,” Martelli said.

While Martelli didn’t get to win No. 400, one St. Joe’s milestone was reached Saturday as senior forward Isaiah Miles got to the 1,000-point mark of his career. Miles needed 18 points to do so and he got 21, making him the 53rd player in school history to accomplish the feat. In his final home game, the senior capped a brilliant fourth season in which he’s now scored 559 this season after notching 444 points in his first three years as a Hawk.

Fellow senior Aaron Brown also had a productive offensive afternoon with 20 points. Miles, who had a double-double with 12 boards, and Brown combined to go 14-for-29 from the floor, but the rest of the team was just 11-of-43. St. Joe’s, which was bothered by the Dukes’ 2-3 zone, shot just 34.7 percent from the floor and also missed nine of its 20 free throws.

“Smart move by them,” Martelli said of Duquesne’s zone. “We did review all of our zone concepts yesterday thinking that we would see zone, because last year they beat us playing zone. We need to do a much better job with our zone offense.”

Duquesne, on the other hand, had a terrific shooting night and hit half of its 62 field goal attempts. The Dukes – who had not won since Jan. 30 and entered on an eight-game losing streak – got a game-high 28 points from guard Micah Mason, who hit five 3-pointers.

Mason’s performance marked the second time this week the Hawks have allowed a big night to an opposing back court player as St. Bonaventure’s Marcus Posley had 47 on Wednesday. The Dukes (16-15, 6-12 Atlantic 10) also got a near triple-double from point guard Derrick Colter, who finished with 18 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds.

"We've just got to get back to the basics, which is on me. Playing defense,” said St. Joe’s forward DeAndre’ Bembry, who was held to 11 points. “We can't win no games without playing defense. So I feel like if we do that we'll be back to normal. …The (opponent) guards have just been scoring however they wanted to.”

As St. Joe’s moves into postseason play, Martelli said he isn’t worried about the team’s makeup, but rather cleaning up its “basketball issues.” The Hawks will have five days off before getting the chance to show it in the conference tournament.

And while they don’t neccisarily need a win to make the Big Dance, a third straight loss would have St. Joe’s fans feeling anxious again.

“This team has a lot of character, but now we’ve been knocked down,” Martelli said. “We fought hard on Wednesday night and we weren’t good enough. And you can be distracted by all the ‘Where are we going to finish if we win? Where are we going to finish if we lose?’ So, to me, the character is getting centered and getting zeroed in.”