Correction: In the Dec. 6 issue of The Hawk, “A tale of three-pointers” stated that Junior Pierfrancesco Oliva was pictured above. Freshman Taylor Funk is pictured above.
Men’s basketball loses to archrival
The roar from the student section could be heard across campus on Dec. 2 for the 2017 installment of the Holy War, a rivalry between St. Joe’s and Villanova University, that dates back to 1921.
However, the home crowd’s encouragement was not enough to help the Hawks. This game brought the Hawks’ biggest ever loss to the Wildcats with a 41-point deficit.
St. Joe’s fell to Villanova, 94-53 at Hagan Arena in front of a sold out crowd. The biggest factor in Villanova’s win was the school record-setting three pointer performance. The Wildcats had 19 three-pointers, going 54.3 percent from deep.
“They’re [Villanova] trying to win every play and that’s what I said to our team,” Head Coach Phil Martelli said. “We didn’t play at every position to win; we played to play.”
This loss puts the Hawks at a record of 4-4 and improves the fourth-ranked Wildcats to 8-0.
Senior James Demery led the Hawk effort with 14 points while rookie Taylor Funk contributed 13. Junior Chris Clover followed close behind with 12 points as well as senior Shavar Newkirk, who chipped in 10.
The Hawks started the game strong, winning the tip and scoring the first basket. They would only take the lead twice throughout the game and both times were within the first three minutes of play.
St. Joe’s stayed on Villanova’s heels in the beginning of the first half, tying up the score at 13 with a Demery layup. However, the Wildcats quickly proved why they are the defending national champions. They went on a 12-0 run with four straight three-pointers, two from Wildcat Omari Spellman, in the last four minutes of the half, putting Villanova up by a score of 41-27 at halftime.
The Hawks had 36.7 percent shooting in the first half combatted by the Wildcats’ 51.6 percent.
“I never thought that we comfortably got into offense,” Martelli said. “We had a specific way that we wanted to run offense and it was more based on skill, and we came out of the first half with six turnovers. That meant that some of our skills met really good, aggressive defense.”
Villanova came out hard in the second half when they increased their lead to 20 points within the first two minutes. After this, they never looked back.
The Hawks had a few opportunities to close the gap, including an impressive Demery layup off of an assist from Funk to bring the game to 66-39 with just under 12 minutes left of play. Newkirk broke a stagnant Villanova defense when he drove to the basket for a layup with nine minutes left to decrease their deficit to 23 points.
The Wildcats quickly answered Newkirk’s basket with a three-pointer and took charge of the court again. They pressed the Hawks until the last minute when they subbed in their bench and the final buzzer sounded. Villanova walked off the court with another victory, 94-53.
While it was not the result St. Joe’s was hoping for, Martelli places the utmost importance in performing well in Atlantic 10 conference play.
“It’s terrific for the city that we have a nationally ranked program that’s top five [Villanova],” Martelli said. “I don’t come to work and say we need to be top five; we need to be at the top of the Atlantic 10.”
With the losses of sophomore Charlie Brown and junior Lamar Kimble to injuries, the team is missing two of their leading scorers. While Kimble is sidelined for the season, Brown is expected to come back from his wrist fracture.
The Hawks will have until Dec. 9 to regroup before they take on another Big 5 opponent, Temple University, who currently sits at a record of 4-2.
