City of Basketball Love

Sean Kramer (@SKramerWrites)
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SPOKANE, Wash. -- There is no shame in the performance Saint Joseph’s displayed Sunday evening at the Spokane Arena.

There is no shame in taking a legitimate national championship contender to the wire, making the superior-talented side exert every bit of those recruiting stars to punch its Sweet 16 ticket.

There’s no shame in returning to Philadelphia with your first NCAA Tournament win in over a decade already in tow.

But nobody on Saint Joseph’s wanted to hear that following a 69-64 loss to top-seeded Oregon in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament.

The win, quite literally, slipped away from the Hawks when DeAndre’ Bembry fumbled away his dribble with 10 seconds left on the clock.

Oregon’s Tyler Dorsey came away from the basketball and sealed the Ducks victory with a pair of free throws.

Bembry, who may have played in his final game for St. Joe’s, is only left with the feeling of what if.

Trailing 67-64, the play was designed for him to find the driving lane to the basket for a quick lay-in to set up the foul or to dish out to Isaiah Miles for another clutch trey from the senior.

Neither scenarios materialized.

“It was right there. Last turnover I had, you never know what could have happened,” Bembry said. “Isaiah could have hit a three, I could have made a layup, so I blame this loss on me, even though coach don't want me to say that. But I can't turn the ball over at the end of the game like that, especially being the leader of this team. I just feel sorry for the seniors that don't have a choice to come back.”

Philadelphia native Lamarr Kimble wholeheartedly and immediately disagreed with his junior teammate.

“It's definitely not his fault. It's a team sport. We came here as a team, and we won as a team, and we lose as a team,” the freshman guard said. “Everybody made mistakes during the game, so that last one is not his fault and we are sticking together.”

St. Joe’s wouldn’t have been in a position to upset the Pac-12 regular season and tournament champions without the efforts of Bembry, who posted a double-double of 16 points and 12 rebounds.

The NBA prospect posted 14 of those points in the second half as St. Joe’s took flight on a 23-6 run to stun the crowd with a 58-51 lead with five minutes remaining in the contest.

Kimble chipped in 11 points himself, including a double-pump layup from the baseline that gave St. Joe’s a 60-58 lead when the game was going back and forth in the final minutes.

Untimely and uncharacteristic turnovers doomed the upset bid. Oregon’s athleticism and length bothered St. Joe’s in a critical possession with under a minute left and the Eugene school up 64-62.

Papa Ndao passed up a seemingly open corner 3 look with a defender crashing out at him. He passed it to Kimble, who was almost helpless as he slightly slipped and couldn’t get a shot off in time.

“The players will tell you, I told them, 10 turnovers and under, we win going away,” Phil Martelli said. “We had 12. Eight in the first half. Two in the last couple of possessions.”

In true grandfatherly fashion that Martelli displays with his players, he refused to allow Bembry or anyone else accept responsibility for the loss. He ran out lineups that hadn’t quite been used as much throughout the year, particularly because Aaron Brown fouled out with 4:13 left in the game and St. Joe’s leading 58-54.

“But there's no finger pointing. I'm not blaming anybody. There's one person that's responsible for this loss, and that's me,” he said.

What’s left for the program now? As Martelli encouraged Bembry toward the draft process and the program bids farewell to Brown and Miles, they can reflect what is clearly the best season the program has had since the 2004 squad led by Jameer Nelson stormed to the Elite Eight.

The results on Sunday don’t diminish the season, or the run, which was certainly not expected to end in the Sweet 16 or beyond when St. Joe’s earned a No. 8 seed to the tournament.

“They came into this building as champions, they're going to leave as champions, and I've been honored to work with each of them since August,” Martelli said. “And that doesn't change, the result tonight doesn't change that. We wish Oregon well going forward and hope that we'll be watching them advance to Houston.”

Kimble’s 11 points on the night signal a decent finish to the season for a player who could take on a major role next season. Being Atlantic-10 champions in his first season on campus, the second such title in three years for the program, is something to build on.

“It's definitely unbelievable, especially for me and the program, definitely. We had the whole St. Joe's Hawks community behind us, everybody supported us, and it was fun,” Kimble said. “It will be one to remember for a long time.”

The very vocal minority of St. Joe’s fans in the building hoisting “The Hawk Will Never Die” signs, also appreciative of the run the Hawks made, began chanting the battle cry even after the loss as players slumped into the locker room area.

“On behalf of our program and our university, we were proud to be in a game like that. It wasn't a thing of beauty, particularly in the first half,” Martelli said. “ … But to have had the opportunity to be in that game against a wonderful man and a great coach in Dana Altman, great crowd, and we just didn't make plays in the last minute and a half.”