Dick Weiss on College Basketball
PHILADELPHIA– Don’t look now, but there is a college basketball renaissance going on at St. Joseph’s Hawk Hill.
It took four long years, but St. Joseph’s coach Billy Lange has finally re-established the Hawk will never die culture that existed during the Jack Ramsay, Jack McKinney, Jimmy Lynam and Phil Martelli eras.
St. Joe’s diehard fans made the pilgrimage to the campus at 54th and City Line again yesterday, filling up 4,200 seat Hagan Arena gym on a rainy day to watch the Hawks’ game against unbeaten 9-0 defending Ivy League champion Princeton. It felt like old times.
They were rewarded with the 8-2 Hawks’ best performance of the year, a 74-70 victory over a quality team that advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 last March.
This was a high- level competitive game filled with electricity.
”Great afternoon for Philadelphia college basketball, regardless of what the result was,” Lange said. “That type of atmosphere in an arena of one of our six Division I schools is great for the ecosystem of Philadelphia basketball. Princeton is a great team. Not a good team, a great team. Their players are great, not good, great. We had to play really well, and we played well when we had to.”
St. Joseph’s junior guard Erik Reynolds II, who scored 28 points at Kentucky and 24 in a win at Villanova, seems to save his best effort for the biggest games. He scored 21 points against the Tigers, including six consecutive clutch free throws in the final moments, making two to send the Hawks up 70-68 with 1:01 to play and then putting the game away with four more in the final 11 seconds. Looking at the upcoming schedule, if Princeton had won this game, this is a chance– a chance– the Tigers could have been the first Eastern team since St. Joseph’s went 28-0 in 2004 to go through the regular season unbeaten.
“Guys were hanging their heads in the locker room, but it’s not always going to go our way,” Princeton coach Mitch Henderson said. “Thankfully, this isn’t happening in the league. It’s just one game. Great environment, great college basketball game and lots of things for us to make away from this one. I don’t really believe in good losses or anything like that, but they were terrific.”
Lynn Greer III had 18 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists while senior wing Cam Brown had 11 and freshman guard Xzayvier Brown added 10 for the Hawks, who won their fifth straight game.
Guard Xavian Lee– who played for the Canadian U19 team– led the Tigers with 20 points and freshman guard Dalen Davis scored all 12 of his points in the second half to keep them in the game. The Hawks rank Top 30 nationally in scoring defense and field goal percentage defense, but the Tigers shot 47.3 percent and made 16 threes in hostile surroundings.
“It’s terrifying. Every single time they raise up, you just think it’s going in,” Lange said. “Just imagine a life determined by a ball going in a basket. Some of the plays, I don’t know how we guard them better than that.”
Ironically when St. Joseph’s was rallying from a 68-65 deficit, Princeton uncharacteristically missed four straight free throws. And St. Joseph’s, benefiting from the fact Princeton’s 6-7 Caden Pierce had fouled out, came up with the biggest play of the game. St. Joe’s was clinging to a 70-68 lead, Reynolds missed a three- point shot. But Cam Brown grabbed the offensive rebound and kicked the ball out to Reynolds, who drained two free throws after being fouled to make it a two- possession game with 11 seconds to play.
This was the culmination of a special weekend in which St. Joe’s women also got a city series’ win over archrival Villanova. This was the type of win that can ignite a fanbase is desperate to bring back a glorious legacy.
