On a night where Villanova was bounced out of the Big East tournament, two smaller Philly schools are making noise in the A-10. Earlier, La Salle upset St. Bonaventure and now St. Joe’s has knocked off the heavily favored George Washington 71-59 in overtime.
St. Joe was the last team to the qualify for the tournament after winning only 4 conference games all year. As the #12 seed, they had to travel to DC to take on George Washington, who went 10-6 in the conference. Regulation time went pretty much as expected for the Hawks. St Joe had trouble generating any offense and GW, who had been fantastic defensively down the stretch, held them to under 50 points. What wasn’t expected was that George Washington’s offense would go so cold. They shot just 35.7% from the floor.
So the game was knotted at 49-49 at the end of regulation, then the unexpected happened. The Hawks outscored the Colonials 22-10 in overtime to stun George Washington and advance to the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 tournament.
St Joe’s had a balanced attacked 5 players in double figures and were efficient from foul line shooting 87.5%. George Washington was the polar opposite. Their offense was mostly reliant on Tony Taylor, whose 22 points was more than twice what the Colonials second leading scorer provided. Plus, they shot only 65% from the foul line. Phil Martelli has a lot to be proud of with the poise shown by this very young St. Joe’s team. This was a big spot against a good team on the road and gives the Hawks huge momentum heading into the next round of this tournament and next season as well.
Next up for St. Joe’s is a matchup with the #4 seeded Duquesne Friday in Atlantic City.