In his first full season on the court since playing at the University of Delaware, St. Joe’s redshirt junior guard Ryan Daly’s play and leadership has not gone unnoticed. As of Feb. 10, he has won four Big 5 Player of the Week awards, as well as two Atlantic 10 Conference Player of the Week awards.
“It’s an honor to get the awards and to be recognized,” Daly said. “We didn’t get the win against Saint Louis [University] or [University of Massachusetts], but everyone will keep playing hard and competing every day and hopefully we win this week.”
While in his last three games he has averaged 29.7 points, 5.0 assists and 6.6 rebounds, it is a stat that does not show up in the box score that has impressed St. Joes’ Head Coach Billy Lange.
“With the injury of Taylor [Funk], los- ing Anthony [Longpre] for some games, Chereef [Knox], Rahmir [Moore], Ryan’s durability is probably the least talked about thing,” Lange said. “The durability he has provided us, I think is overlooked and has been critical to the spirit of our team. The spirit of our group this year has been very admiral, and I feel like that is tied with Ryan’s durability.”
While his durability commends high respect, his scoring ability is what Daly is known for. He scored 1,000 points at Delaware in two seasons and is well on his way to do the same at St. Joe’s. Daly is currently sitting on 468 points with eight games left, not including the A-10 tournament.
“We can get very creative in where we can use him,” Lange said. “He has developed throughout the year. In the last three games you can see how much better he has gotten. I don’t think anyone anticipated that this might be the type of season that he was capable of having.”
Daly said being one of the older players on a young Hawks’ team has helped Daly’s on-court leadership shine as well.
“Since this is my third year playing I have more experience than most guys on the team,” Daly said. “We are young but getting the experience. I just try to help everyone out the best I can.”
Junior forward Taylor Funk, commented on Daly’s leadership ability, citing Daly’s redshirt season as inspiration.
“I think sitting out helped him ma- ture,” Funk said. “He got to know and become familiar with the program and all of the new faces, and that is probably the biggest thing he pulled out of that.”
As of Feb. 10, Daly is currently tied for the conference lead in points per game with 20.3 and is ninth in assists per game with 4.3. If Daly finishes the year atop the A-10 scoring leaderboard, he would be the third Hawk in program history to do so, joining Charlie Brown and DeAndre’ Bembry.
“I think he is an inspiration,” Lange said. “I think our guys see him and are like alright shoot if we can have one of the best players in the Atlantic 10 and it is a guy who has worked to be that, they may think they can do it too. That is immeasurable, that matters a great deal.”
