Early-season rust shows for St. Joseph’s in narrow exhibition loss to Bucknell

St. Joseph’s fans got their first look at the 2024-25 men’s basketball team when it hosted Bucknell as part of its annual autism awareness game on Saturday.

The Hawks lost, 88-82, to the Bison, who are led by former St. Joe’s assistant coach John Griffin III, who is in his second year as head coach of 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 Bison:

The Hawks were missing sophomore guard Xzayvier Brown (thumb) and freshman guard Khaafiq Myers (knee), but St. Joe‘s starting five stepped up. Each starter put up double-figures Saturday, led by Erik Reynolds’ 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, and redshirt freshman Dasear Haskins (14 points) and graduate transfer Justice Ajogbor (12 points) made the most of their minutes.

St. Joe’s showed depth with two players out, but it needed to find consistency as the newest Hawks continue to settle in. St. Joe’s received zero points from its bench, which was comprised of from sophomores Anthony Finkley and Shawn Simmons II and freshmen Steven Solano and Mekai Johnson.

“That‘s a lot of minutes for Derek, and we needed to do it with [Brown] out, Lange said of Simpson’s 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 shot 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 held off the Bison a little more in the second half, but these numbers raise a few alarms regarding the Hawks’ 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 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 OK, but not as well as we would want to do. Communication. These are simple things.”

St. Joe‘s finished with 23 defensive rebounds, including seven from Haskins. Meanwhile, Ajogbor added two blocks to the Hawks’ total of seven.

“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 and finished 19-for-32.

Lange said this was cause for concern, and a main focus going forward will be finding a different way to provide 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.”

With some different competition under their belt, the Hawks look to retool before officially starting their season against Navy on Nov. 6 (7 p.m., ESPN+) at Hagan Arena.

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