College Basketball

Balanced scoring leads Saint Joseph’s to win over UMass to open Conference Play & Close out 2024

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David Malandra Jr
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David Malandra Jr Sports Editor

I am Sports Reporter that covers Pro & College Sports in Philadelphia & any other events that are featured in Philadelphia

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Published31 Dec 2024

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Philadelphia: As the Entire Nation prepares for New Year’s Eve, College Basketball keeps going, and we had a good one to kick off Atlantiic 10 conference play as the Saint Josephs Hawks battle UMass Minutemen from Hagan Arena. The Hawks came into the game with a 9-4 record and off a win over Delaware State while UMass made their way to Hawk Hill with a 5-8 record and off a loss to Arizona State.

Saint Joseph’s would drop some news before the game

 

Lineup:

How the game went:
Early on both the Hawks & Minutemen would get off to slow starts  & the Minutemen would hold a 4-point lead when it was 11-7 with 13:38 & from that point on theHawks would figure things out and start to make things challenging for Minutemen. A storage play would see Saint Joseph’s Coach Billy Lange get a technical foul with 9:05 left and at this point, could this comeback and hurt the Hawks if they were to blow this game?

 

During one of the timeouts in the first half, Saint Joseph’s Hawks great Jameer Nelson was in attendance

 

Rasheer Fleming  would have a strange game as in the 1st half would make a new poster with this monster throwdown

Later on in the first half, Erik Reynolds II  would give Hawks fans a scare as he would go down & had to be helped off the floor and then a few minutes later, he would return to the age. UMass would hang around and got the game tied at 31 with 3:46 left & then the Hawks would end the Half with 4 straight points for a 37-33 lead into halftime.

 

Another thing that happened in the game was that Siant Joseph’s Coach was angry at halftime and this happened

 

From everything we saw in the 1st half, what could we expect to see in the second half & we did a good amount of things including some history for the Hawks, The UMass Minutemen would get the lead down to 42-41 with 15:50 & from that point the Hawks would take things over & got the lead up to 10 at 64-54 with 7:26 left.

The History part mentioned earlier in the column  & Erik Reynolds II  would pass Pat Carroll for second all-time on Saint Joseph’s Hawks Career list.

 

For the second time in the game, UMass Minutemen would not throw the white flag as they got the lead down to 4 with 3:50 & at this time, Rasheer Fleming would FOUL OUT. After that happened, the Hawks would say that’s enough playing around and finish off the UMass Minutemen for an 81-72 win to begin Atlantic 10 Conference play. This game would also hit another milestone as Saint Joseph’s Coach Billy Lange picked up coaching win 200.

 

This was a type of game that the Saint Joseph’s Hawks needed to show the rest of the conference they are going to be a very hard matchup to prepare for and also this is a learning lesson as the Hawks started conference play last year 0-3 and good for them to get things off the right way

Postgame:

Saint Joseph’s Coach Billy Lange:

UMass Coach Frank Martin:

Saint Joseph’s Justice Ajogbor & Anthony Finkley

Final Numbers:

 

Balanced scoring leads Saint Joseph's to win over UMass to open Conference Play & Close out 2024

What is next:
With the win, the Hawks now go to 10-4 on the season & will prepare for battle against Saint Louis on Jan 3 while Umass falls to 5-9 on the season & will attempt to get back to the winnings ways when they take on Richmond on January 4.