St. Joseph’s knocks off George Mason in second round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament

NEW YORK — The first basket of St. Joseph’s first game in second-round action of the Atlantic 10 men’s basketball tournament against George Mason was a perfect turnaround jumper from Lynn Greer III. It sparked the earliest of leads that the Hawks would never surrender in a 64-57 win over the Patriots.

The ninth-seeded Hawks advance to face top-seeded Richmond (23-8) in the quarterfinals on Thursday (11:30 a.m., USA Network).

In the teams’ only meeting during the regular season, St. Joe’s (20-12) narrowly beat eighth-seeded George Mason, 75-73, in a game that featured 20 lead changes and 10 ties. The Hawks’ win on Wednesday at the Barclays Center saw St. Joe’s lead for more than 38 minutes.

While George Mason (20-12) made things interesting by cutting it to three in the final minute, a huge steal by St. Joe’s guard Cameron Brown put the ball back in the Hawks’ hands. Rasheer Fleming sank a pair of foul shots to ice the win with 10.9 seconds left.

“When [Fleming] stepped to that foul line, I was as confident as a coach can be in a guy that shoots [percentage-wise] in the 60s from the free throw line. He’s steadfast,” St. Joe’s coach Billy Lange said.

Brown finished with a team-high 16 points and became the 20th player in program history to notch 1,500 career points. Fleming added 14, while Greer had 13 points and five assists.

St. Joe’s held the Patriots to only two points across the first six minutes of the game. George Mason missed its first five three-pointers, all coming in the first seven minutes, and then didn’t attempt another for the remainder of the half.

The Hawks sank 5 of 15 from long range to build a lead that stretched to as many as 13 in the first half.

“It’s a time of year that nobody wants to go home,” Brown said. “Both teams are going to play hard. And guys just got to make plays. Everybody on the team, we all trust each other.”

George Mason was able to narrow the gap to single digits, but defensively St. Joe’s kept the Patriots at bay. Fleming had two big blocks and the Hawks combined for four steals in the first half.

St. Joe’s knocked down a pair of threes to start the second half on a 6-0 run. After Erik Reynolds II’s driving layup was blocked, he grabbed the rebound and converted on a step-back three to sink George Mason into its largest deficit yet.

“Second-half energy is something we’ve been trying to search for a little bit the whole season,” Brown said. “We can’t come off flat in the second half, give teams hope. Once you give teams hope and energy, anything can happen. So you kind of want to control that to start the second half, and we were able to do that today.”

The Patriots made their first three-pointer of the game 12 minutes, 56 seconds into the second half when Darius Maddox capitalized on a St. Joe’s turnover. Maddox entered Wednesday ranked ninth in the conference in three-point percentage (41.3%), but the Hawks had shut him down for most of the game. George Mason shot a collective 1-for-13 from deep and was led by freshman guard Baraka Okojie who finished with a game-high 22 points.

“Maddox moves like crazy. And so it just makes it really challenging,” Lange said. “And I thought the defense for 40 minutes, the intentionality on Maddox, was as good as we’d done on an individual scouted player all season long.”

Reynolds fell to the ground hard on an offensive drive in the second half and was subbed out of the game after trainers checked his right elbow, though he returned to the floor in the final minute.

St. Joe’s shared the basketball well, with four Hawks reaching double figures. On a day when Reynolds, St Joe’s leading scorer, was 2-for-12 from the field, other players shared the load. Reynolds also had three of St. Joe’s 14 assists.

St. Joe’s lost its only meeting against the Spiders this season, 73-66. With Greer sitting out because of a hip injury, the Hawks trailed Richmond for most of the game. A second-half rally and 42 combined points from Reynolds and Xzayvier Brown ultimately fell short.

“If you take the stats of Lynn ... you would say he would have made a big difference, but we won’t know until [Thursday],” Lange said. “And they’re terrific. But I’m happy that we have him, instead of not having him.”

While the Hawks have secured at least one more day in Brooklyn, the team is already planning its return to the arena for next season. St. Joe’s announced Wednesday it will return to the Barclays Center to participate in the 2024 Legends Classic on Nov. 21-22. St. Joe’s will join Syracuse, Texas, and Texas Tech in the four-team field.