The Hawks were down sophomore guard Xzayvier Brown (thumb) and freshman guard Khaafiq Meyers (knee), but St. Joe's starting five stepped up, each putting up double-figures in Saturday's matchup.
St. Joseph's basketball fans got their first look at the 2024-25 Hawks men's basketball team when they hosted Bucknell as part of its annual Autism awareness game on Saturday.
The Hawks lost 88-82 to the Bisons, led by former St. Joe's assistant coach John Griffin III, who is in his second year as head coach for his alma mater.
"I root for him every single time that he plays, except for today," St. Joe's head coach Billy Lange said. "And I would like to play them again next year. This is a great test for us. You know they're going to play hard."
There were three takeaways from the Hawks' early test against the Bisons:
The Hawks were down their sophomore guard Xzayvier Brown (thumb) and freshman guard Khaafiq Meyers (knee), but St. Joe's starting five stepped up, each putting up double-figures in Saturday's matchup. Erik Reynolds paced the Hawks with 24 points, followed by Rutgers junior transfer Derek Simpson who added 17 Junior forward Rasheer Fleming put up 15 points, eight rebounds, three blocks, and two steals for the Hawks, with redshirt freshman Dasear Haskins (15 points) and fifth-year Justice Ajogbor (12 points) made the most of their minutes.
St. Joe's showed depth with two players out, but need to find consistency as the newest Hawks continue to settle in. St. Joe's received zero points from sophomores Anthony Finkley and Shawn Simmons II, and freshman Steven Solano and Mekai Johnson.
"That's a lot of minutes for Derek, and we needed to do it with X out, said Lange, referring to Simpson's totals after playing 35 minutes. "I thought if anybody looked a little bit physically fatigued, it was probably him. I thought he did a lot of good things. I think he has things he's got to work on. It was great to get Dasear out there, after a redshirt year, I thought he got more comfortable as the game went on. Mekai is solid and smart. Steven's going to keep having to get better. I think we have to find a way to keep him on the floor more."
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Bucknell finished the game shooting 44.6% from the field, 42.3% from long range, and found its way to the free throw line 34 times. While St. Joe's defense was able to hold off the Bisons a little more in the second half, these numbers raise a few alarms regarding the Hawks's defense going forward.
"When you have good players and good guys, which we have, it often comes down to the consistency of the things that are like so simple people don't think they're important," Lange said. "On the defensive end, just one-on-one, keeping the guy in front of you, showing your hands to the officials. There were a ton of times we put them on a foul line for no reason. Rebounding, boxing out, and going and getting a rebound, we did okay, but not as well as we would want to do. Communication. These are simple things."
St. Joe's finished with 23 defensive rebounds, seven from Haskins. While Ajogbor finished with two of St. Joe's seven blocks. Fleming paced the Hawks with three.
"Justice's shot blocking is a big thing," Lange said. "It's hard to stay disciplined on playing defense all over the floor, but I thought he was better in the second half."
Another big area of concern for the Hawks was their free throw shooting -- or rather, the lack thereof.
Despite a few key free throws at the end to stay close, the Hawks struggled at the line, finishing 19-for-32.
Lange said this causes reasonable concern for St. Joe's, and a main focus going forward will be finding a different way to provide the players with the repetition needed to reconcile shooting 59.4% from the line.
"We shoot 100 a day, but with each team, you [have to] look to see if there is a different way to get the repetitions that can help this team," Lange said "To me, those are good possessions that resulted in getting two free throws. We had three times, at least, where we went 0-2. We had another time where we missed the front end of a one-and-one, and then we have, you know, a guy that's generally shooting 90% missing four."
Getting a taste of different competition, the Hawks look to retool before officially starting their season against Navy at Hagan Arena on Nov. 6 (7 p.m., ESPN+).