The St. Joseph’s men’s basketball team has been in this situation multiple times before. The Hawks had double-digit leads in conference play before fumbling them away with poor shooting and losing.
For a few minutes there against Loyola (Ill.), on Saturday at Hagan Arena, it felt like déjà vu.
The Hawks saw their 17-point lead dwindle to four with 10 minutes, 53 seconds left in the second half. But they then took it into second gear, and surged to a 75-61 win.
The win placed St. Joe’s (17-10, 9-5 Atlantic 10) in a tie for third place in the conference, with four games left in the regular season.
“This is kind of our DNA right now,” said coach Steve Donahue. “We struggle sometimes on the offensive end, not from an execution point, but just the ability to be consistent with our shot making. Then we get better at that … and then we hang our hat on defense.”
Statistical leaders
St. Joe’s dominated the rebounding battle in the second half with 20 boards compared to just 10 from Loyola. The Hawks shot 44.8% from the field and were led by guards Jaiden Glover-Toscano and Dasear Haskins with 23 points apiece, a career-high for Haskins.
Guard Derek Simpson had 11 points and 10 assists.
Deywilk Tavarez and Kayde Dotson both finished with 14 points for the Ramblers (6-22, 2-13), who shot just 36.8% from the field.
What we saw
The Hawks bombarded Loyola with their defense. The Ramblers missed their first nine shots before guard Nicolus Anderson finally got the team’s first bucket 7:30 into the game.
The Hawks alternated between press and man defense to stifle Loyola’s shooting, which found the Ramblers shooting just 27.6% in the first half and going 0-for-10 from three.
However, the Hawks’ offense took a while to click as well. They made 37.9% of their shots in the half behind Glover-Toscano and Haskins, who led the charge with seven points each in the half.
But there are inconsistencies, as Donahue was quick to point out.
“We’re just not 40 minutes [of] consistent offense,” he said. “There’s a lot of inexperience.”
Game-changing play
Just more than two minutes had gone by in the second half and the Hawks were charging with a 17-point lead. Then, Loyola started chipping away, finding shots, as its three-point shooting returned and dwindling St. Joseph’s lead to just four.
Enter Glover-Toscano and Haskins.
Glover-Toscano drilled a three and Simpson found Haskins for an alley-oop to send Hagan Arena into a frenzy. Then both got steals, leading to a dunk and a behind-the-back layup to push the lead up to as much as 14.
“I was thinking [about] what I was going to do, but I just wanted to get the bucket,” Haskins said.
Up next
St. Joe’s will host George Mason (21-6, 9-5) on Wednesday, (7 p.m., ESPN+).
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