City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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As James Demery made his way toward the hoop, he paid no mind to the near seven-footer in his path.

Though La Salle’s 6-foot-10 big man Tony Washington stood between Demery and the rim, the St. Joe’s senior had one thing on his mind.

“I was just going with the moment,” Demery said. “The adrenaline was pumping. I was like, ‘Hey let me go ahead and make this basket.’”

Demery leapt above Washington and tossed down a monster dunk, well more like throw-in, that put the Hawks up by five with two minutes, 42 seconds left in Saturday’s game against La Salle.

The highlight play proved to be the turning point in the Big 5 matchup as the Hawks picked up a 78-70 win against the Explorers to close off the regular season.

“At a time like that you need a play to boost the team up,” Demery said. “I felt like that was a confidence booster for us.”

Pookie Powell had his shot going early for the Explorers (13-18, 7-11 A-10), scoring 11 points in the game’s first eight and a half minutes to build a 17-9 lead for La Salle. Powell was a factor throughout the game, finishing with 26 points and six assists.

Spurred by an 11-point first half from freshman forward Anthony Longpre’, the Hawks (15-15, 10-8 A-10) bounced back to take a 39-33 advantage into the halftime break. Longpre’ came into Saturday shooting 31 percent from deep, but made 3-of-4 attempts from deep, all in the first half.

“He hasn’t shot a good percentage this year, but he shoots them because he obviously thinks he can make them and so does the coaching staff…Unfortunately today he made some,” La Salle head coach John Giannini said.

A Nick Robinson 3-pointer on the Hawks’ first possession of the second half put Saint Joe’s up by nine, and it looked like the Hawks might ride the momentum of the first half into another big run. Instead, La Salle reeled off eight straight points of its own to cut the deficit to one.

Two straight corner threes by Saul Phiri gave La Salle back the lead with 12:48 to go.  It was the last lead for the Explorers for the rest of the game.  A 3-pointer by Hawks’ senior guard Shavar Newkirk momentarily put St. Joe’s back on top on their next possession. 

After two ties, a jumper by Demery with 10:28 left, gave Saint Joe’s a lead it would not give up for the rest of the game. It seemed each time La Salle got close, Demery hit a big shot, including his late dunk. The senior scored 14 of his team-high 18 points in the final 12 minutes of the game. Newkirk finished with 16 points as the two seniors paced the Hawks.

“Seniors have two ways to go when you get to like February 1,” Saint Joe’s coach Phil Martelli said. “They can go like, ‘Eh. It didn’t go our away,’ or ‘Let me sprint to the finish line.’ Those two guys are sprinting to the finish line, and I hope the finish line is several games away.”

Saint Joe’s went into Saturday tied with George Mason and St. Louis for fourth place in the Atlantic 10. With two buzzer beater losses to George Mason and a loss to St. Louis in the only meeting this season, the Hawks needed losses by both teams on Saturday night to clinch the No. 4 seed in the conference tournament.

Richmond beat George mason and St. Bonaventure took down St. Louis, so the Hawks will enter the Atlantic 10 tournament where many predicted them to finish before the season started, among the top four teams in the conference.

However, with six of their eight conference losses by three points or fewer, it was not an easy task. The Hawks won six of their last seven A-10 games down the stretch, including a 30-point road win against No. 17 Rhode Island on Tuesday, to get to this position.

“It’s unprecedented what they went through,” Martelli said. “Six body blows. Six games we’ve lost in this league with the last ball in the air, either for us or against us, the last ball in the air, to win or lose or extend it to overtime. You just can’t take too many of those.”

The Explorers on the other hand had a chance to move out of the play-in day of the A-10 tourney. Instead the loss coupled with some other results around the league dropped them to the No. 12 seed. They will play No. 13 UMass on Wednesday. Winner plays George Mason and the winner of that one will play the Hawks.

La Salle had some close calls this season and another win or two would have meant a lot in terms of seeding in a jam packed A-10. One more win and the Explorers would have been tied with Dayton for ninth place, and two more wins and the Explorers would have been tied with four other teams for fifth.

“We blew a 21-point lead in the second half at UMass, we blew a four-point lead with 11 seconds left at Duquesne,” Giannini said. “Two bad plays, and we’re looking at a play-in game instead of an upper half finish. In a year, two play out of thousands, and the situation is dramatically different.”