Poor First Half Sinks Saint Joseph’s in Atlantic-10 Semifinal Loss to VCU

PITTSBURGH — Saint Joseph’s quest of making its first Atlantic-10 Championship game since 2016 came up short in the semifinal round for the third-consecutive year as the VCU Rams dominated them from wire-to-wire en route to a 77-64 final on Saturday, March 14.

Saint Joseph’s entered the tournament as the No. 3 seed after Steve Donahue pulled off a regular season for the ages, anointed head coach on Sept. 10. VCU managed to take the air out of the Hawks’ magical turnaround in the first half, allowing just two shots in a 12-minute span.

The Rams unleashed a game-deciding 33-10 run during that cold spell, leading 37-15 when the dust settled. The Hawks were never able to recover.

“All credit goes to VCU, they were absolutely ready,” Donahue said after the loss. “Obviously, we are disappointed in our performance, we haven’t played that poorly in a long time. They had a lot to do with it.”

VCU’s gameplan, engineered by head coach Phil Martelli Jr., the son of former and legendary Saint Joseph’s head coach Phil Martelli, centered on their defense. Martelli said that if his team could limit the All-League backcourt of the Hawks, Derek Simpson and Jaiden Glover-Toscano, that the Rams would be in good shape shutting down the rest of the team.

“We knew Simpson and Glover-Toscano are as good a duo as there is,” Martelli said. “We knew if we shut them out early, it could make it hard for those other guys because we were guarding the right way.”

Defense Leads the Way

The Rams accomplished just that, especially through the first 30 minutes of the game. At the half, the two of them were a combined 4-of-10. Even worse, the rest of the team went 5-of-24 in the first half.

While Martelli grew up rooting on his father’s Saint Joseph’s teams, he said that thought never  crossed his mind when coaching against them in one of his biggest games of his career.

“Honestly, that didn’t register at all,” Martelli said. “We are just so locked into the numbers. Yesterday was number one, today was really just number two. There wasn’t any time to even think about any of that stuff. We were here to get number two.”

Saint Joseph’s made two of its first four shots, taking an early lead. From there, it was all Rams.

Trailing 44-21 at the half, the Hawks needed perfection if they wanted a chance of coming back. A 14-6 run out of the break that included threes from Finkley, Glover-Toscano and Austin Williford provided hope.

Hopes Crushed

A Khaafiq Myers triple made the score 54-38, but Terrance Hill Jr. took over for the Rams from there, sinking three-straight difficult shots and pushing the Hawks’ deficit back to 20.

Saint Joseph’s maintained their intensity but couldn’t cut into the lead until the waning minutes, the game well out of hand.

“I don’t think there’s a more gratifying season in so many different ways for me personally,” Donahue said after the game — high praise from someone who’s held a head coaching role for the past quarter century — although he admitted the bitter aftertaste of a March run cut short.

“What these guys did, put all of the stuff, all of the adversity, all of the distractions and drama that was around the program for a couple of months [behind them] and just buy into what we were telling them each and every day,” Donahue said. “That’s why I don’t like the taste in my mouth right now.”

Now, his attention turns to the offseason.

After “The nature of this business is that you’ve got to get started on it right away and that’s what we’re going to do,” Donahue said. “We have a great core of people that we want to be part of St. Joe’s basketball going forward… Our goal is to build on that core with the same type of people that represent Hawk Hill like we would love it to, and then get us over the hump and get us into the NCAA Tournament.”

Stick with Philadelphia Sports Now throughout the offseason for all transfer portal and Hawks’ basketball related news.