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  • Steve Donahue has St. Joe’s ‘blending’ together at the right time

    Steve Donahue has St. Joe’s ‘blending’ together at the right time

    Steve Donahue sat back in his chair, a smile stretched across his face. St. Joseph’s had just beaten La Salle, 67-58, on Saturday, the Hawks’ sixth win in their last seven, and Dasear Haskins, who made six three-pointers and tied a career high with 20 points, was talking about the “A to B mentality” Donahue has drilled into his team.

    “I told my mom I will A to B to practice the other day,” said Haskins, a redshirt sophomore who played at Camden High. “It’s like a lifestyle to me now. I think the guys are treating it like that.”

    The motto is simple enough: “Whatever A is, you have to get to B,” Donahue said later. A can be something good. A can be something bad. St. Joe’s has just gotten a lot better at the getting to B, and it’s not surprising that it took a couple of months for that to happen, for the Hawks to look like the sum of all their parts, considering all that has happened since September.

    Former coach Billy Lange abruptly left for the NBA. The roster that he worked hard to build would be playing for a new coach, Donahue, whom Lange brought on as his top assistant after the Delaware County native was fired following his ninth season at Penn. New coach, new roster, awkward timing. The Hawks started 2-3, had some ups and downs, then by mid-December their leading scorer, Deuce Jones, was no longer with the program.

    They started Atlantic 10 play by losing their first two games. Then came a team meeting. Then came six wins in seven tries, a stretch that could be a perfect 7-for-7 if not for late-game execution on the road against a good VCU team.

    Zoom out a little bit, and on a macro level this version of the Hawks is the B to whatever A was after they allowed Davidson to leave Hagan Arena with a 62-56 win on Jan. 3. The season could have gone sideways then, but it hasn’t. St. Joe’s is 14-8 overall and 6-3 in the A-10 and in fourth place in the conference.

    St. Joseph’s coach Steve Donahue points to the student section after a 67-58 win against La Salle.

    Perhaps, finally, Donahue’s team is taking on a little bit of his own personality, playing the way Donahue wants the Hawks to play.

    “I like to think that,” Donahue said Saturday. But he also wanted to credit Lange for laying a foundation. Lange, Donahue said, “built a really good program here with really good people.” He pointed to the consecutive 20-win seasons and the program’s footing in the A-10.

    “I’m grateful that I walked into this and have guys like [Haskins],” Donahue said. “That being said, I saw things that bothered me.”

    Big 5 notebook: St. Joseph’s turnaround

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    “We lost three games where we were tied or up against good opponents with eight minutes left, and we didn’t get from A to B,” Donahue said. “We allowed the circumstances to change who we are. We’ve been through a lot, and since then I just see their ability to forget about personal expectations and figure out what needs to be done in that game.”

    Saturday, Donahue said, was living proof.

    La Salle did everything it could to take Derek Simpson out of the game. Simpson has been on a tear during this recent run, but the shooting lanes weren’t there, so the Hawks found Haskins on the weak side and the lefty made La Salle pay with six threes on seven attempts. Simpson still more than made his mark on the game with 13 points, six rebounds, and seven assists.

    Hawks guard Dasear Haskins (7) reacts after a made three-pointer against Jerome Brewer and La Salle.

    The feisty Explorers used an 11-0 run to make the game interesting late, but St. Joe’s battled through a couple of turnovers and closed the game with its free-throw shooting.

    “When a game gets closer, we just want to get closer,” Haskins said. “We just come together, listen to our coaches, trust in our game plan, and just come together as a unit.”

    Words that make Donahue smile.

    “There’s a mentality now that we’re not going to be affected if something is going right for the other team and wrong for us,” Donahue said. “We’re going to move on and figure out how to win this game.”

    Some of this recent success has a simpler explanation. It’s just a natural part of a team growing together. Simpson and Justice Ajogbor, both seniors, have been steady. Simpson, Donahue said, is the “heart and soul” of the team, and is no longer looking over his shoulder. But the other components of the team needed time. Jaiden Glover-Toscano barely played at St. John’s last season. Haskins is playing his second season of college basketball. The Hawks rely a lot on two freshmen, Austin Williford and Khaafiq Myers, and a backup center, sophomore Jaden Smith, who had a limited role at Fordham last year.

    “The youth is catching up to the older guys and we’re blending,” Donahue said.

    It’s the right time for it, considering the calendar just flipped to February. The Hawks have nine games left before the conference tournament in Pittsburgh. They have shown the ability to play with and beat some of the conference’s best, like Dayton and Virginia Commonwealth. There will, of course, be no trip to the NCAA Tournament without running the table in Pittsburgh, and doing so means getting through those teams and the juggernauts, St. Louis, which beat St. Joe’s by 23, and a George Mason squad the Hawks play on the road on Saturday.

    That stuff will sort itself out when it’s supposed to. For now, the Hawks can just enjoy the ride.

    “Winning is so fun,” Haskins said. “I love winning so much.”

  • St. Joseph’s hot shooting streak in the A-10 continues at the expense of La Salle

    St. Joseph’s hot shooting streak in the A-10 continues at the expense of La Salle

    St. Joseph’s picked up its sixth win in its last seven games following a 67-58 final on the road against La Salle on Saturday.

    The Hawks (14-8, 6-3 Atlantic 10) shot 14 of 32 in three-pointers, while La Salle (7-14, 3-6) made 3 of 19 three-point attempts.

    The Hawks were led by sophomore guard Dasear Haskins, who finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Alongside Haskins, Hawks sophomore guard Jaiden Glover-Toscano added 16 points.

    After a disappointing nonconference slate, the Hawks have surged in A-10 play. After Saturday’s matchup, St. Joe’s sits third in the conference. Head coach Steve Donahue praised his team’s ability to ignore the noise early in the season.

    “We’ve been through a lot,” Donahue said. “I just see [the team’s] ability to forget about personal expectations and figure out what needs to be done on that game, and that tonight was a perfect example.”

    Haskins said it simpler.

    “Winning is so fun,” he said. ”I love winning so much.”

    The Explorers were competitive early in the game, thanks to Rob Dockery’s 26 points, eight rebounds, and five assists. The redshirt sophomore guard was the only Explorer to finish in double-digit scoring, with freshman guard Ashton Walker adding nine points and six assists.

    Hawks’ Haskins hot from deep

    St. Joe’s came out hunting the deep-ball early. Thirty of the team’s 36 first-half points came in three-pointers. Six threes were courtesy of Haskins, who made all of his attempts in the first half.

    With under four minutes to go before halftime, Haskins showed off his shooting touch with a pocket three that rattled around the rim before dropping.

    “I was just confident in my shots,” Haskins said. “My guys were cutting for me early, making it easy for me, and I was just making shots.”

    Still, La Salle did not shake.

    With the Hawks living beyond the arc, La Salle’s Dockery made St. Joe’s pay in the paint, where he had 16 first-half points.

    Even with Haskins’ spotless shooting to start, the Explorers trailed 36-29 entering halftime.

    Late push by La Salle

    Both teams exchanged punches to start the second half, but St. Joe’s kept its lead.

    With 12 minutes remaining, Walker made a flashy hop step pull-up jumper in the paint to bring the score to 48-41. After exchanging misses, Toscano hit a one-handed slam to extend the Hawks’ lead back to nine.

    For every positive play the Explorers made, the Hawks had an answer.

    “I thought defensively we had some breakdowns that we shouldn’t have had,” said La Salle coach Darris Nichols. “But, you know, they’re a good team. They’re playing well right now, they do the job of sharing the ball.”

    As St. Joe’s converted free-throws down the stretch to put the game away, its student section loudly chanted “The Hawk will never die” as the La Salle faithful filed out of Glaser.

    Donahue made his way over to the fans to show his appreciation.

    “I feel [the fans’ impact] at St Joe’s, more than any place I’ve been,” Donahue said. “They really care about basketball. The students care. It’s fun to be a part of that.”

    After a rough start to the season, St. Joseph’s head coach Steve Donahue has the Hawks sitting third in the Atlantic 10 conference.

    Up next …

    La Salle travels to take on Loyola (Ill.) on Tuesday (8 p.m., ESPN+). On Wednesday, St Joe’s will host George Washington (7 p.m., NBC Sports Philadelphia).

  • Big 5 notebook: St. Joseph’s turnaround will get a real test from a pesky La Salle team

    Big 5 notebook: St. Joseph’s turnaround will get a real test from a pesky La Salle team

    It was easy to imagine the 2025-26 St. Joseph’s season as being a lost one on Jan. 3, after the Hawks went six minutes without a basket in crunch time and blew an 11-point second-half lead to Davidson to fall to 8-7 overall and 0-2 in the Atlantic 10.

    In fairness, that’s what it had been to date. This wasn’t glass-half-empty thinking. Consider what had transpired in the four previous months. Former coach Billy Lange abruptly left in September, and St. Joe’s turned to Steve Donahue, whom Lange had hired as associate head coach after Donahue was fired by Penn.

    Who would stay? Who would leave? It was a little late for the players to reasonably find somewhere else to go. Lange had built a roster capable of competing in the upper half of the A-10, but then came a 2-3 start. By mid-December, leading scorer Deuce Jones, a La Salle transfer, was off the team.

    The Hawks went 3-for-22 from three-point range in that Davidson loss. By that point, only one of their eight victories had come against a team ranked inside the KenPom top 200, and even in that one they needed a frantic comeback and a wild shot from Jones before the buzzer to beat Temple. Two of the eight wins were against Division III teams.

    St. Joe’s has won five of six since then. What changed? The shots are falling more consistently, which always helps, and there’s more of a sense of togetherness when you watch the Hawks than in games earlier in the season.

    But never question the power of a meeting. The Hawks had one in the aftermath of that Davidson loss in Donahue’s office, where six players entered with change in mind.

    “When we looked at ourselves in the mirror, we saw something that we didn’t like,” said senior guard Derek Simpson, who scored a season-low six points in that Davidson loss but has scored 19.2 points per game in the six since.

    “We got our feelings out,” Simpson said. “We were able to tell each other how we felt.”

    St. Joe’s coach Steve Donahue celebrates with fans after a victory over Dayton on Saturday.

    St. Joe’s (13-8, 5-3) has been nearly perfect since. The only blemish came against a Virginia Commonwealth team rated 46th at KenPom (St. Joe’s is 157th), and the Hawks could have won that game. They got 20 points from Jaiden Glover-Toscano to help knock off Dayton one game later, and the St. John’s transfer is starting to show more flashes of why he was a high-major prospect in the first place. He had the highlight of the night Tuesday when he threw down a one-handed slam, one of the Hawks’ 12 dunks in a blowout win over lowly Loyola-Chicago.

    Next on the schedule for St. Joe’s is a game Saturday against its crosstown rival, La Salle, that looks a lot more interesting than it did a few weeks ago.

    That’s because the best win of the young Darris Nichols era in Olney happened last week when the Explorers started Dayton off on its Philadelphia trip from hell by jumping out to a 33-8 lead and held on for dear life in a 67-64 victory.

    That came on the heels of a win over St. Bonaventure.

    The Explorers (7-14, 3-5), who are much healthier now than they were earlier in the season, lost Wednesday night at Fordham, but they’ve hung in against some of the A-10’s elite and play a style that won’t be fun to go against in the conference tournament.

    Or if you’re a St. Joe’s team looking to keep the train on the tracks Saturday.

    Will Villanova end its NCAA Tournament drought? Here’s what the numbers — and Joe Lunardi — say.

    White Out Saturday at Temple

    Temple announced more than 2,600 attendees at its Wednesday night home game vs. Charlotte, but it didn’t take a census veteran to realize that number was way overinflated. Half of that number might have been generous. Some students showed up, but many of them were gone after the iPad giveaway was doled out.

    The Owls probably deserve a little more support. That aforementioned heartbreaker vs. St. Joe’s at the Big 5 Classic was followed by a seven-game winning streak. Then, during the week when assistant coach Bill Courtney died suddenly, Temple nearly beat two of the best teams in the American Athletic Conference.

    Temple coach Adam Fisher (right) reacts to an official’s call during the loss to Charlotte.

    The Owls should have closed out a win over Charlotte on Wednesday, despite being without key starter Gavin Griffiths. They led by nine with six minutes left before losing in overtime. But they’re 5-3 in conference play (13-8 overall) and just one game back of first place.

    They host a South Florida team on Saturday night that is 6-2 and in a four-way tie for first (8 p.m., ESPN2). It’s White Out night at the Liacouras Center.

    An ode to Dan McQuade, a man who loved basketball

    Philadelphia is a lot worse off without Dan McQuade, who died of cancer at 43 years old this week. McQuade, the son of longtime Daily News assistant sports editor Drew McQuade, was a singular writer who wrote for various publications — Defector, Deadspin, and Philadelphia Magazine among them — with flair and fun and with more curiosity than most.

    Dan wrote about a lot of things, but he sure loved Philly basketball, and wrote about it often, like when he went to the Catholic League final in 2023 and implored people in a Defector article to go out and see more basketball games in person. Or when he wrote about attending a La Salle home game and witnessing an economic professor light the silly smoke machine at Gola Arena. Or when he went to a Big 5 doubleheader at the Palestra, where he attended many games as a former Penn student and sports writer, and wrote a compelling case for little kids playing basketball being the best version of the halftime show.

    Or when he turned La Salle hiring former Penn and Temple coach Fran Dunphy into a human story about a writer who found his footing covering hoops at Penn and a coach who made that college-age writer feel accepted among his professional peers.

    Rest in peace, Dan.

  • The Big Picture: Joel Embiid, Gritty, and college hoops highlight our best sports photos of the week

    The Big Picture: Joel Embiid, Gritty, and college hoops highlight our best sports photos of the week

    Each Friday, Inquirer photo editors pick the best Philly sports images from the last seven days. This week, we’re avoiding the weather and staying inside with plenty of hoops action — from the Big 5 to the Sixers. We’re also in the thick of Flyers season, so we won’t leave the ice totally behind. But first, Gritty.

    Gritty pumps up the home crowd during the Flyers’ loss to the New York Islanders earlier this week. On Sunday, the team will host its annual Flyers Charities Carnival.
    Flyers defenseman Emil Andrae gets checked by Islanders right wing Maxim Tsyplakov during Philly’s 4-0 loss on Monday. The Flyers had won just two of their last 11 games heading into Thursday’s matchup with the Boston Bruins.
    Flyers goaltender Samuel Ersson stops the puck during the first period against the Islanders. The team has two more games before the Olympic break.
    Ersson (right) stands in his crease after Islanders center Jean-Gabriel Pageau (left) scored a third period goal during Monday’s loss. The Flyers were in a three-way tie for fourth in the Metropolitan Division heading into Thursday’s game against the Bruins.
    Sixers center Joel Embiid scored 38 points Saturday against the New York Knicks, but the team lost, 112-109.
    New York Knicks forward OG Anunoby (center) passes the ball from the floor as Sixers forward Dominick Barlow (right) and guard VJ Edgecombe defend.
    Sixers guard Kelly Oubre Jr., runs into New York Knicks and former Villanova guard Josh Hart in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s tight loss in South Philly.
    Jared McCain, who had his best game of the season Tuesday, celebrates a three-point basket in the fourth quarter of their win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
    Sixers center Adem Bona blocks New York Knicks guard Miles McBride’s dunk attempt in the second quarter on Saturday.
    Drexel Dragons guard Eli Beard (right)) drives to the basket against Northeastern Huskies guard JB Frankel (second from right) during during the Dragons’ 83-78 win at Daskalakis Athletic Center on Saturday. Drexel has won five of its last six games.
    St. Joe’s guard Jaiden Glover-Toscano dunks during the second half of the Hawks’ 81-74 win over Dayton University at Hagan Arena on Saturday. Glover-Toscano scored 20 points in the win.
    Temple’s guard Aiden Tobiason, who scored 16 points, reacts during overtime of the Owls’ 80-76 loss to Charlotte at the Liacouras Center on Wednesday.
  • Natasha Cloud thrilled that ‘Young Tash’ gets Philly hoops homecoming with Unrivaled: ‘I carry this city everywhere I go’

    Natasha Cloud thrilled that ‘Young Tash’ gets Philly hoops homecoming with Unrivaled: ‘I carry this city everywhere I go’

    Natasha Cloud will never forget Mr. Ross.

    The youth coach used to hold 6 a.m. workouts inside a Baptist church on City Avenue, where Cloud first learned how to be disciplined in basketball and in life.

    “I hope he sees this,” Cloud said Thursday afternoon, while facing a slew of television and phone cameras inside the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center. “… He set a standard. He set an expectation. And he set a work ethic for my skill set, my career.”

    Cloud brings all of that back to Philly on Friday night for the Unrivaled offseason league’s two games at Xfinity Mobile Arena. The 33-year-old Broomall native called it a “dream come true” to help lead the return of professional women’s basketball to her city ahead of the WNBA’s arrival in 2030. Yet Cloud is most elated for “Young Tash,” who has blossomed into a WNBA champion, an 11-year professional, a dynamic personality, and an activist on and off the court.

    “I carry this city everywhere I go,” Cloud said following practice for the Phantom, her Unrivaled team. “… I just never thought I would be here, so I think the most gratifying thing is just trusting God’s journey for my life. Doing it my way, too. Because I don’t think a lot of people get to do their careers their way.”

    Basketball star Paige Bueckers is not afraid to use the platform her fame has given her

    Before Mr. Ross, Cloud credits her Aunt Dawn as one of her first sports role models. A Delaware County basketball and softball star, she helped Cloud embrace being a tomboy — and a “powerful, badass woman.”

    So Cloud honed that athleticism on the basketball hoop on the side of her home, which became a neighborhood gathering spot on school half-days. She played King — nah, Queen — of the Court against the boys. They lowered the rim so they could dunk. They idolized Allen Iverson and Dawn Staley.

    When Linus McGinty, the legendary Cardinal O’Hara girls’ basketball coach, first watched Cloud play as an eighth grader, he believed she had WNBA potential because “she could do everything.” And Cloud wanted to play for that program because, in her words, “in Linus we trust.”

    Cloud also appreciated O’Hara’s structure, from the nuns on campus to McGinty’s “strict” practices. She became an immediate starter on a talented team immersed in the competitive Philadelphia Catholic League.

    New York Liberty player Natasha Cloud dances while standing with other officials during an announcement about the Unrivaled Women’s Basketball League 2026 Philly tour stop.

    McGinty’s one gripe about Cloud? She was almost too unselfish as the point guard.

    “She never tried to score first,” the coach told The Inquirer by phone last week.

    But Cloud made up for that in defensive prowess. The 5-foot-10 Cloud guarded the much more imposing Morgan Tuck and Elena Delle Donne, then elite recruits who became college and WNBA stars. Cloud preserved O’Hara’s 2008 PCL title victory by blocking a three-point attempt at the buzzer.

    Then when Cloud was the only starter who returned her senior year, she finally carried more of O’Hara’s offensive load. She was an All-State selection after averaging 12.3 points, 7.9 rebounds, 5.2 assists, and four steals, before beginning her college career at Maryland in 2010-11.

    Diane Richardson is an advocate for the WNBA. She says Unrivaled will get Philly ready for its franchise.

    After her freshman season, she transferred to St. Joseph’s to be closer to home. Her sister had been diagnosed with stomach cancer, and she was looking for a similar family atmosphere within her next college program.

    “Tash is a very compassionate person,” St. Joe’s coach Cindy Griffin recently told The Inquirer by phone. “So if there’s anything going on at home, she feels that. She would have to learn how to manage that, and she did an unbelievable job doing that.”

    While sitting out the 2011-12 season because of NCAA transfer rules at the time, Cloud worked on refining her jumper. Her energy filtered to teammates and staff, Griffin said, even when she was playing on the scout team. That perhaps was most evident on defense, where she consistently covered ground (and others’ mistakes) while understanding how to rotate sharply and when to take risks on the ball. She was the Atlantic 10 Defensive Player of the Year in 2014.

    “That just fueled fire for all of her teammates,” Griffin said, “and it just elevated everybody around her. … They really appreciated that, and they wanted to play hard for her and with her.”

    Then when the Hawks needed more scoring punch from Cloud as her career progressed, she delivered.

    Before her WNBA career, Natasha Cloud starred at St. Joe’s.

    She totaled 15 points, six assists, and six rebounds in a comeback win over Fordham in the 2013 A-10 tournament championship game, and “looked like a pro out there, finishing in transition, taking and making tough shots,” the coach said. That carried over to the next season, when Cloud hit timely buckets to propel the ninth-seeded Hawks’ to upset eighth-seeded Georgia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

    “Came down to a 1-5 ball screen,” Griffin said, “and [Cloud] being able to put us on her shoulders and win the game for us. … The answer is yes she can, and yes she will.”

    Cloud’s impact has now stretched far beyond Philly.

    She won the 2019 WNBA championship with the Washington Mystics and led the league in assists in 2022. She has made a WNBA All-Defensive team three times. She has played overseas in Turkey and Australia. She opted out of the 2020 WNBA “bubble” season to focus on social justice issues and remains outspoken on such topics.

    But she has stayed connected to her roots.

    She still has a house in town, meaning one might catch her during the offseason at the local Wawa or driving her truck. She regularly visits St. Joe’s to work out and chat with the team, reminding them how special college bonds can be. Unprompted, she told The Inquirer last week that she hopes to have her jersey number retired by St. Joe’s and O’Hara — preferably while her parents are still around to celebrate with her.

    St. Joe’s women get it done down the stretch to beat La Salle, 69-65

    And now, she finally gets to play professional basketball in Philly. When she learned Unrivaled would be making a tour stop here, she knew fans would “show up and show out” for the showcase event. She stepped onstage wearing a Phillies cap for the October announcement at LOVE Park and pumped up the crowd. She hopes local kids getting to watch her play in person is a jolt of inspiration.

    Among those in attendance Friday will be the Hawks, “shouting as loud as we can for Natasha Cloud and the Phantom,” Griffin said. An intrigued McGinty said he also might need to get down to South Philly. Mr. Ross surely is welcome, too. And it will be the first time Cloud plays in front of her family here since 2015.

    They all helped develop “Young Tash.” And that is why she carries the city with her everywhere she goes — including back home.

    “I’ve stayed true to myself,” Cloud said. “True to my character, my morals, my values through all of it. And that’s just a testament to, I feel like, being from Philly. We stand on our [stuff]. We’re going to talk our [stuff]. You can’t tell us otherwise. We know who we are.

    “We’re confident in who we are, and a lot of people take it as arrogance. But it’s just, like, ‘Man, God has blessed me so abundantly. Who am I to not walk out in this light every single day?’”

  • St. Joe’s women get it done down the stretch to beat La Salle, 69-65

    St. Joe’s women get it done down the stretch to beat La Salle, 69-65

    St. Joseph’s built a 10-point lead with less than six minutes to play in an Atlantic 10 women’s game against La Salle on Wednesday night at John E. Glaser Arena.

    Then the Hawks offense went silent and La Salle began to mount a comeback. An and-one layup plus a pair of free throws from Explorers guard Aryss Macktoon made it a four-point game with less than two minutes remaining.

    But St. Joe’s (14-6, 5-4 A-10) warded off a La Salle comeback to earn a 69-65 victory. The Hawks outscored the Explorers by 26-3 in bench points and shot 44.8% from the field.

    “I think what you saw was a game of runs,” St. Joe’s coach Cindy Griffin said. “There was a lot of great offense out there. Not a whole lot of defense at times. But I was really pleased with how we came out in the second half, especially in the third quarter. We got a little space and we were able to make plays down the stretch.”

    Statistical leaders

    St. Joe’s had a balanced scoring effort with seven players scoring at least seven points. Guard Gabby Casey led the way with 14 points, with 10 coming in the second half. Emily Knouse added 11 points on 3-for-5 shooting in three-pointers. Forward Cecilia Kay had a team-high seven rebounds.

    La Salle guard Joan Quinn finished with a game-high 18 points against St. Joe’s on Wednesday.

    Guard Joan Quinn made 4 of 7 three-pointers and scored a game-high 18 points for La Salle (11-10, 4-6). Forward Kiara Williams contributed 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting and six rebounds. Macktoon, the Explorers’ leading scorer, was well guarded but managed 11 points and seven rebounds.

    Stinson comes up clutch

    After Macktoon’s and-one layup to cut St. Joe’s lead to four points, the Hawks were in desperate need of a basket to stunt the Explorers’ momentum. They turned to a player who was quiet offensively all game.

    Forward Faith Stinson did not score for the first 38 minutes but scored her first points when it mattered most. She got free on a cut and guard Rhian Stokes (11 points) delivered a perfect pass that Stinson converted to halt La Salle’s run.

    After its Big Three moved on, St. Joe’s women’s basketball leadership has a decidedly Philly flair

    The basket gave St. Joe’s breathing room.

    “You saw a senior post who had been there, done that,” Griffin said. “She came up big in the first game [against La Salle], and at the end of the day, we went to her, we found her. Rhian found her in the first game and I think that kind of sealed the game and it was just the same situation today.”

    Big second half

    The Hawks built a 24-17 lead with back-to-back three-pointers from Knouse, a freshman. However, the Explorers did not stay down long, thanks to Williams. She made two straight jumpers to cap an 11-2 run, which gave La Salle a two-point lead. The teams traded baskets to enter halftime tied at 32.

    St. Joe’s forward Cecilia Kay (32) battles La Salle forward Kiara Williams for a rebound.

    St. Joe’s jumped out to a 38-34 lead to open the third frame and never allowed La Salle to retake the lead. That lead ballooned to 10 halfway through the fourth quarter, and the Hawks’ strong second half helped them prevail.

    “I think we came out and it didn’t really go our way, but then we showed up in the second half with our grit, our toughness and staying composed and staying together to really come out and take a force in the first three minutes of the second half,” Casey said. “I think that was just really great, and that gave us momentum throughout the game.”

    Up next

    St. Joe’s returns home to take on Davidson (15-7, 7-2) on Sunday (1 p.m., ESPN+), while La Salle will travel to face Duquesne (7-14, 0-10) on Saturday (2 p.m., ESPN+).

  • Three St. Joseph’s players score 20 points in win over Dayton

    Three St. Joseph’s players score 20 points in win over Dayton

    With St. Joseph’s leading Dayton by eight points in the second half Saturday, guard Jaiden Glover-Toscano got the crowd on its feet with a slam dunk.

    St. Joseph’s (12-8, 4-3 Atlantic 10) held onto to that lead as the Hawks secured an 81-74 victory at Hagan Arena. Glover-Toscano, Derek Simpson, and Dasear Haskins each finished with 20 points. Simpson added nine assists. Guard De’Shayne Montgomery scored a team-high 19 points for Dayton (14-6, 5-2).

    St. Joe’s Jaiden Glover-Toscano dunks against Dayton.

    “That was a fun atmosphere. That’s what college basketball should be,” Hawks coach Steve Donahue said. “Students going crazy, our guys being motivated, inspired by the fans. … The guys I thought played 40 minutes of really good basketball.”

    Burst of energy

    After falling to La Salle on Wednesday, Dayton hoped to rebound and opened the game against the Hawks with an 8-0 run.

    Dayton did enough to keep itself in the game. That is, until Haskins gave the Hawks the boost they needed.

    Haskins, who was scoreless in the first 14 minutes, drilled a three-pointer, which cut the deficit to two. He then grabbed a rebound and ran the length of the court before getting a layup, which got Hagan Arena jumping.

    St. Joe’s Derek Simpson passes the ball to Dasear Haskins on Saturday.

    Before halftime, he knocked down two additional three-pointers, one coming in the final seconds, which gave St. Joe’s a 38-36 lead.

    “It was a real big three,” Haskins said. “We were working hard that whole play, offensive rebounds and kicking out. We emphasize something called ‘boulder’ [in] every practice. So I know when [Simpson] got the ball, I know he was looking for me.”

    Clamping down

    St. Joe’s shut down Dayton in the second half.

    Montgomery was held to three points. On top of that, the Hawks forced 15 turnovers overall and coughed up the ball only 12 times against the conference’s top team in takeaways.

    Dayton’s stagnant offense allowed the hosts to add to their lead, thanks in part to Glover-Toscano, who scored 15 points after the break.

    The Flyers eventually climbed out of a double-digit deficit as the Hawks didn’t score a field goal in the final four minutes, but it wasn’t enough as Dayton fell to its second straight city team and A-10 foe.

    Up next

    The Hawks will travel to Loyola Chicago (5-16, 1-7) at Gentile Arena on Tuesday (9 p.m., CBS Sports Network).

  • St. Joe’s men’s and Drexel women’s basketball move games due to Philly’s expected winter storm

    St. Joe’s men’s and Drexel women’s basketball move games due to Philly’s expected winter storm

    With heavy snow expected this weekend, two Big 5 basketball programs are moving their tipoff times.

    The St. Joseph’s men’s team was slated to take on Davidson at 6 p.m. on Saturday at Hagan Arena. Now, the Hawks will be starting at 2 p.m. to avoid interference with potential snowfall on Saturday night.

    The Drexel women moved its Sunday matchup against Towson at the Daskalakis Athletic Center to Saturday at 6 p.m., which will now be a homecoming doubleheader with the men’s team, which faces Northeastern at 2 p.m.

    The women’s team will play back-to-back days, as the Dragons host Stony Brook at 6 p.m. Friday.

    The Philadelphia region will be under a winter storm watch from 7 p.m. Saturday until midday Monday. As of Friday, the area is expected to receive anywhere from eight to 14 inches of snow.

  • Amid college basketball’s gambling scandal, concerns that mid-major players could be vulnerable

    Amid college basketball’s gambling scandal, concerns that mid-major players could be vulnerable

    Rollie Massimino “did not mess around” when it came to drawing up defensive schemes against Patrick Ewing … or warding off gambling temptations that might filter through to his Villanova players.

    “When we were playing, we had an FBI agent who was a former ’Nova basketball player give talks about gambling,” said Chuck Everson, a member of Massimino’s 1985 Wildcats title team that took down heavily favored Georgetown.

    “Rollie did not mess around with that stuff. It wasn’t that far removed from the Boston College [point-shaving] scandal. Rollie brought in the FBI to talk to us. Coach Mass did a great job of teaching us, and it wasn’t all basketball; it was life lessons. And with gambling, it was, ‘Don’t do that.’

    “To this day, I have never called DraftKings, or anything like that. I attribute that to being scared straight with Coach Mass.”

    Everson, 61, played in an era when sports betting wasn’t legal in most of the country. These days, things are quite different. College athletes are compensated by their schools or through lucrative name, image, and likeness deals, and the legal/illegal gambling culture infiltrates every level of sports.

    Last Thursday in Philadelphia, federal authorities announced a sweeping criminal indictment and related filings against 26 people on charges related to manipulating NCAA games and Chinese professional games through bribes, some as high as five figures.

    It is the fourth federal criminal indictment that involves gambling and sports unsealed in the last six months, and the latest alleged gambling scheme involves one of the storied Big 5 programs: La Salle.

    According to the indictment, at least one of the purported rigged games took place in 2024 in Philadelphia between La Salle and St. Bonaventure.

    Dozens of people, including 20 players, were charged in a basketball gambling scandal targeting NCAA and Chinese games

    There are at least 39 players from 17 NCAA Division I schools who are alleged to have been involved in the scheme, but the indictment may underscore other, more troubling concerns.

    Players at mid-major or smaller Division I programs might earn a fraction in NIL money compared to what their counterparts at elite programs take in, and therefore might be more susceptible to the temptations of illicit paydays. As one former federal prosecutor put it, this alleged scheme might be one of many dominoes waiting to fall.

    “Anything that interferes with the integrity of sporting events, you’re going to get action by prosecutors,” said Edward McDonald, who prosecuted those involved in the Boston College point-shaving case in the late ’70s. McDonald, now senior counsel at the Dechert law firm, thinks that mid-major schools, like La Salle and some others in the Big 5, could be particularly vulnerable to gambling and bribery schemes.

    “These smaller schools, the compensation to players is not as great [compared to larger programs], even for the better players on the team,” said McDonald, who learned of the Boston College scam through his investigations of organized crime family members with the Justice Department (and played himself in the Martin Scorsese-directed mob film Goodfellas).

    “Players going to big-time schools are making 10 times more. A player [at a smaller program] might not be having a good season or might think they’re not going to play in the NBA or professionally, and they might say, ‘What the hell, I might as well cash in now.’”

    Prop bets on a La Salle game

    According to the court filings, one of the defendants, Jalen Smith, and former LSU and NBA player Antonio Blakeney (who is “charged elsewhere,” according to the indictment), attempted to recruit players on the La Salle men’s basketball team for the point-shaving scheme.

    The fixers offered the La Salle players payments to underperform and influence the first half of a game against St. Bonaventure on Feb. 21, 2024, according to the filings.

    Prosecutors allege that before the game at Tom Gola Arena, defendants who acted as fixers placed bets totaling approximately $247,000 on the Bonnies to cover the first-half spread. A $30,000 wager was made in Philadelphia at a FanDuel sportsbook, according to the indictment. But those bets failed after La Salle covered the spread.

    “Neither the university, current student-athletes, or staff are subjects of the indictment,” La Salle wrote in a statement. “We will fully cooperate as needed with officials and investigations.”

    La Salle coach Fran Dunphy directing the Explorers in November 2023. Dunphy retired after last season.

    Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told The Inquirer that several years ago he received complaints from a number of college coaches in his state about online abuse directed at players and threatening calls from gamblers who had lost big.

    “I called up [NCAA president] Charlie Baker, and asked him, ‘What do you think of prop betting?’” DeWine said. “He said, ‘We don’t like it.’ And I said, ‘Give me a letter that says that.’

    “Under Ohio law, if I can get a letter from a league saying, ‘Don’t bet on certain things,’ that gives me the ability to go to my Casino Commission and they can [enact rules] without any legislation. Charlie sent the letter, I took that to the commission, and that stopped collegiate prop betting.”

    The Ohio Casino Control Commission granted the NCAA’s request to prohibit proposition bets on collegiate sports in February 2024, but the decision affected only Ohio.

    “It doesn’t really eliminate the problem,” DeWine said.

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    The ban in Ohio is only a drop in the bucket against a sea of pro-gambling momentum, legislation, and, most significantly, lucrative revenue streams.

    CJ Hines, a guard who was dismissed from Temple’s basketball team on Jan. 16, allegedly participated in a point-shaving scheme during the 2024-25 season while playing for Alabama State, according to the indictment. Hines transferred to Temple in May but didn’t play this season after the university announced that he was under investigation for eligibility concerns before his enrollment.

    Former Alabama State guard CJ Hines (3) averaged 14.1 points in 35 starts last season.

    The Atlantic 10 Conference — which includes La Salle and St. Joseph’s — weighed in on the latest gambling indictment.

    “Any activity that undermines the integrity of competition has no place in college athletics,” commissioner Bernadette V. McGlade said in a release. “The Atlantic 10 and its member institutions will continue to work closely with the proper authorities to combat illegal activities.”

    A St. Joe’s spokesperson added: “St. Joseph’s University has not been approached by federal investigators or any other entity about suspicious sports wagering activity involving St. Joe’s student-athletes or team.”

    Fran Dunphy speaks for the first time about how the NCAA point-shaving scandal touched La Salle

    Villanova, which plays in the powerful Big East Conference, has numerous resources and protocols in place to address the sports wagering issue.

    Handbooks, which include NCAA rules on gambling, are distributed annually to athletes, who also must sign a sports wagering document before being declared eligible. The athlete must acknowledge he or she won’t engage in activities that influence the outcome or win-loss margins of any game.

    In 2021, 2023, and 2025, Villanova brought in speakers who have a history with sports gambling to talk with athletes about the risks and dangers associated with it. Villanova’s athletic compliance office meets twice annually with every athlete to review NCAA compliance standards, including its rules on sports wagering.

    Former Villanova basketball star Maddy Siegrist told The Inquirer last year that her college alma mater ingrained in her mind the potential devastating consequences of gambling, values that she continues to adhere to as a WNBA player.

    ‘The integrity of sports is at risk’

    Even after the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that legalized sports wagering state to state, the honesty and integrity component still comes into question when so much is riding on any sports wager.

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    DeWine, the Ohio governor, is taking a proactive role in trying to address malfeasance in the gaming culture.

    “I’m writing letters to all other major [sports] leagues,” DeWine said. “They need to get on this. If they sit back, they’re making a huge mistake. I think the integrity of sports is at risk. I’m continuing to urge these leagues to take care of business, because they’re the ones that are going to get hurt.”

    But McDonald said that with the flurry of recent indictments involving sports and gambling, “you have to wonder how pervasive [the illegal gambling problem] really is.”

    “This could very well be the tip of the iceberg,” McDonald said.

  • A former St. Joe’s walk-on won $1 million picking NFL games while ‘changing diapers’

    A former St. Joe’s walk-on won $1 million picking NFL games while ‘changing diapers’

    Chris Coyne had a chance to win $1 million earlier this month, but that wasn’t enough to get him out of reading his son a bedtime story.

    His friends were coming over the next afternoon to watch the final slate of NFL games as Coyne neared the prize. So his wife said it was his night to make sure one of their two children was sleeping.

    And there was Coyne — a cell phone on his lap so he could follow the Buccaneers-Panthers game on Jan. 3 — reading The Pout-Pout Fish to 2-year-old Charlie.

    “I know it by heart now, so I’m just reading it from memory and watching the phone on mute while I’m telling the story,” said Coyne, who also has an infant son named Harrison. “But I have a million dollars on the line. The Bucs missed a field goal, and I’m like, ‘Ahh.’ I had to grit it.”

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    It was the start of an emotional roller coaster of a weekend that ended with Coyne, a 34-year-old former walk-on for Phil Martelli at St. Joseph’s, winning the $1 million grand prize in a season-long NFL pick ’em contest run by a Las Vegas casino with 6,000 participants.

    He lost a game in September when the Eagles returned a blocked field goal against the Rams, picked up a win in December when the Raiders kicked a meaningless field goal to lose by 7 points instead of 10, and then pouted through that bedtime story as the Buccaneers faded.

    It was a season-long marathon. But it ended with Coyne, who lives in Brooklyn, flying to Las Vegas during the NFL’s wild-card weekend to claim his oversized check and custom blue jacket at the Circa Resort & Casino as the winner of the Circa Million VII.

    “I wasn’t as dedicated to it as many others are,” said Coyne, who was at the playground with his kids when he checked his phone to see how Jordan Davis’ sprint spoiled that game against the Rams on Sept. 21.

    “I joke that there were no models, no Excel spreadsheets. It’s just me changing diapers and making picks.”

    A team photo of the 2012-13 St. Joe’s team with Chris Coyne (first row, third from the left).

    Walk-on Hawk

    Coyne was cut from the St. Joe’s basketball team as a freshman and sophomore but was certain that his junior year in 2011-12 would be different.

    He could have played Division II hoops but came to Philly because his Manhattan high school followed the Jesuit educational model just like St. Joe’s. Coyne played JV ball as a freshman and sophomore for the Hawks and practiced with Martelli’s crew in the offseason.

    He rode his bike home from the gym the night before tryouts and thought it was finally his chance to make the team. Then Coyne hit a curb and flew over his handlebars. His palms were gushing blood and his wrists were banged up.

    “I had no skin on my hands,” Coyne said. “There it goes. There goes the dream.”

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    Coyne arrived early to the tryout, hoping that the Hawks athletic trainer could do something. The trainer wrapped Coyne’s hands and sent him on the court.

    “I pretty much looked like a boxer,” he said.

    It worked as Coyne — shooting like coaches always stressed with his fingers and not his palms — seemed to knock down everything. Maybe he should always play like a prizefighter, he thought.

    Martelli called to tell him that his third try was a success: Coyne was a walk-on.

    Chris Coyne played for coach Phil Martelli alongside star Langston Galloway (10) during his time with St. Joe’s.

    “It was my dad’s birthday and I called him to tell him,” Coyne said. “He was the one who pushed me to see this through and not just play at the D-III level. He said, ‘This is your dream. Whether you get one minute in a game or 30 minutes, go see this through.’ I couldn’t thank him enough.”

    He played two years for Martelli, who told the bench players on the “Pinnie Squad” to give it their all in practice against the starters. The reserves were a bunch of guys like Coyne, who could have played elsewhere but stayed on Hawk Hill with Martelli.

    So the future $1 million NFL picker battled every day against Langston Galloway, the future NBA player. Martelli assigned his players to read articles about leadership and teamwork and preached the value of family. It was always more than basketball.

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    “I never felt like I was just sitting on the sidelines getting guys water,” Coyne said. “You were in the mix every day, which was really cool.”

    Coyne played just 12 minutes over eight games during those two seasons. But he did knock down a three-pointer at the Palestra, entering the game late against Penn on ESPN for his first NCAA basket.

    “It’s funny looking back and thinking, ‘Why would you ever be nervous?’” Coyne said. “But you’re just sitting there, you’re cold, there’s 15,000 people in the stands, and he’s going to call your name but you don’t know when it’s coming or if it’s coming. You’re just thrown out there.

    “My parents were there and it was a dream come true. It was years of seeing your dream not play out the way you wanted to and then have that opportunity.”

    Chris Coyne making the first and only three-pointer of his St. Joe’s career in 2013 against Penn at the Palestra.

    Winning it all

    Coyne entered his first football contest in 2019 after his friend Brian Hopkins signed him up during a trip to Vegas. He split that entry with Hopkins, and they met each week at a Manhattan bar after work, scribbling down the five games they liked on napkins.

    The pool has a $1,000 buy-in and requires each entrant to pick five games every week against the point spread. A proxy then places the bets for them in Vegas, as more than half the players live outside Nevada.

    Coyne and Hopkins decided to each enter the next season, and they developed their own strategies. Coyne stays away from Thursday night games as he would have to pick all five games by then instead of waiting until Saturday afternoon. The lines for every game lock on Thursday morning, which sometimes means a line could move before Coyne sends in his picks.

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    He didn’t watch a full NFL game until the middle of October because he was usually busy on Sundays with his kids. He read articles during the week and listened to podcasts. Picking games, Coyne learned, is less about breaking down game tape and more similar to the sales job he has on Wall Street.

    “You’re aware of trends,” Coyne said. “When the public A.K.A. retail is buying a lot of stock, that’s never a good sign. Maybe in the short term it works out, but over the long term, you try to find those overreactions in the market where the public really likes a team. Especially if the public loves a team and the line is going against the public.

    “That’s the biggest telltale sign right there. You have to have a process and you have to know what you’re doing, but so much of it is you have to get the breaks sometimes. The breaks went my ways sometimes.”

    That bedtime story would have been a bit less stressful had the Bills converted their two-point try a week earlier against the Eagles, as Coyne would have entered the final weekend with a three-game lead.

    Josh Allen and the Bills’ inability to execute a two-point conversion against the Eagles on Dec. 28 made Coyne’s road to the $1 million a little more stressful.

    Coyne was in Berwyn for that game visiting the family of his wife, Maddy, which was rooting for the Birds despite knowing Coyne was in the hunt for big money.

    “I’m devastated and I’m like, ‘Can’t you for one week just be on my side?” he said “But Eagles trump all in that household.”

    He instead had to sweat it out. He won Saturday night with the 49ers after the Buccaneers lost and then won Sunday with the Giants but lost with the Titans and Dolphins. Coyne said he tends to pick bad teams since he’s often going against the popular choices.

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    The Steelers won on Sunday night, pushing the second-place entry even with Coyne. He thought they would then split the first and second prizes ($750,000 each) and went to bed disappointed.

    “It was a long couple of weeks and I was football fatigued,” Coyne said. “I’m all [ticked] off. But I couldn’t complain. It was still $750,000 and it was a great season, but I didn’t know if I was getting the blue jacket. That’s what I really wanted. It’s like the Masters green.”

    Coyne woke up at 5 a.m., checked his phone, and saw he finished in first place on a tiebreaker, because he had more winning weeks than the other entry. The $1 million prize was his. The blue jacket was, too.

    Chris Coyne (second from the left) with his friends in Vegas on Jan. 9 after he won the $1 million prize.

    Coyne flew to Vegas that weekend with his friends, received his prize, spent 30 hours at the resort, and didn’t take his blue jacket off until he got home.

    It was perfect, like a walk-on hitting a three-pointer at the Palestra with his parents in the crowd.

    “I spent all of November and December saying, ‘How am I going to screw this up?’” said Coyne, who finished 60-29-1 over 18 weeks. “But somehow I came out on top. It was the weekend of a lifetime.”