Xzayvier Brown leading a youth movement at St. Joseph’s that will determine where the Hawks go

You only needed to watch Xzayvier Brown play in his final two high school games to know no moment would ever be too big for him in college, even as a freshman. Brown led Roman Catholic to a Philadelphia Catholic League title last year in two key performances at the Palestra.

How would Brown perform at St. Joseph’s at the end of a tight Atlantic 10 game in late January? Last year’s games provided plenty of evidence to surmise the answer, and Wednesday night at Hagan Arena confirmed it all.

First, Brown drilled a three-pointer that cut a four-point deficit to one with 4 minutes, 35 seconds to go. Then, with St. Joe’s ahead of George Mason by just a point, Brown confidently drove into the lane and jumped toward the rim. As George Mason defenders closed in, Brown switched to his left hand and finished a layup to put the Hawks ahead by three inside of two minutes to play. The next possession down court, Brown drove again, drew multiple defenders, and his missed layup was put back by fellow freshman Christ Essandoko.

All of it was critical in the Hawks’ 75-73 win. Brown finished with a team-high 16 points on 7-for-12 shooting and added four assists and four steals.

“All the work I’ve put in helps me be fearless in moments like these,” said Brown, who is scoring 11.4 points per game while shooting 45% from three-point range. “I’m not surprised, because I believe in myself, but it’s definitely rewarding when you know you put the work in.”

St. Joe’s coach Billy Lange pointed to Brown’s growth over his two-plus months of college basketball. Earlier in the season, during a tough home loss to Texas A&M-Commerce, Brown missed a late-game layup, Lange said.

“What I look for is the level of consistency and the fearless attitude, and I see it,” Lange said. “The kid is consistent. He wants to work. He’s fearless. He wants the moments. Those are important for us as we continue to strive to get to something sustainable.”

It’s not just Brown whom St. Joe’s is relying on to take a big step early. Sure, the Hawks largely will go as veteran guards Lynn Greer III, Cameron Brown, and Erik Reynolds II go, but there is so much youth and inexperience in Lange’s rotation, and how that youth continues to progress over the next six weeks will determine where this season goes. Xzayvier Brown played 31 minutes. Essandoko, playing in just his 14th Division I game, played 29 minutes (while grabbing a game-high 15 rebounds). Sophomore Rasheer Fleming, who Lange believes is among the youngest sophomores in the country, had 13 points and nine rebounds in 34 minutes. Freshman Anthony Finkley, who played with Brown at Roman, had seven points in 11 minutes.

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St. Joe’s plays a pretty high-variance style of basketball as it is with Lange’s three-point shooting philosophy. Add youth into the mix, and it’s hard to know exactly what you’re going to get each night.

That reality has played out a bit this season. Essandoko has been in and out of the lineup, and at 7 feet tall, St. Joe’s has had to learn how to play with that type of body on the floor. The Hawks have had highs, wins over Villanova and Princeton near the tops, and some lows, like that loss to Commerce and opening 0-3 in conference play. Growing pains. St. Joe’s was picked fifth in the A-10 before the season. At times, the Hawks have looked like that ranking was too low and too high. Lange pointed to variables within his team and with others in the conference that made all of the preseason math a bit difficult to figure out.

“What I knew is we were still going to be reliant on freshmen and sophomores,” he said. “And so I thought that the rating, although based off of what we had coming back, was a bit premature because I knew we can’t be really good unless the growth of Rasheer, and Christ, and Shawn [Simmons II], and Anthony, and X, grows.

“I think the beginning of the season, the nonconference, was, I think, an indication of where we are and who we can be and where we were, but I don’t think it was an indication of how the whole season was going to go.”

It certainly hasn’t been. The Hawks were in the at-large NCAA Tournament bid conversation before conference play started. They’re not anymore, which means games like Wednesday night lean more toward meaningless than meaningful on the scale of importance. The remaining 10 conference games will just be opportunities for all of the youth and talent to blend and figure out how to win when it matters.

“Rasheer has to become a guy that, at the end of his sophomore year, people look at him and say he’s either an all-A-10 player now or he’s going to be,” Lange said. “And then the rest of the freshmen have to be guys that can go play in the Barclays Center in March and try to get us to the NCAA Tournament.”

This wasn’t a coach putting pressure on his youngest players. It’s just the truth about what has to happen.

Pressure? What pressure?

“I wouldn’t say it’s pressure, because we’re just hoopin’,” Brown said with a smile.