After two dark years, Martelli, St. Joseph's are back

What were the last two seasons like for St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli? Two straight 11-win seasons after 10 straight winning ones. Doubts creeping in - including in Martelli's own head - about whether the Hawks could rebound. Once Martelli was national coach of the year, but how long ago was that?

"I was my own toughest critic, saying, 'This isn't working,' " Martelli said this week while preparing for Saturday's "Holy War" vs. Villanova at Hagan Arena. "Helpless wouldn't be the right word. Hopeless wouldn't be the right word. But bordering on helpless and hopeless. And saying . . . How am going to shake this? How am I going to shake myself out of this? How am I going to shake the program out of this? . . . This program had been built on hope, a 'we're going to defy the odds' kind of thing. And here we weren't defying the odds."

Nobody was holding any telethons for Martelli's emotions. He is well-compensated to lead the Hawks. It's his job to right the ship or take the heat. In his daily routine, it wasn't so much that Martelli was getting accosted by angry Hawks fans, more like he saw the lack of eye contact at the dry cleaners or in the Wawa. Nobody knew what to say.

"I am a glass-half-full kind of guy, but when I'm walking in here and nobody's making eye contact, everybody's head's down, you could see the hurt, like in my secretary's eyes," Martelli said. "Going home, no one wanted to talk about a game, or talk about a player. It would be like any project that anybody out there enters into, and it's not working. And emotionally it's a grind; mentally, it's a grind; physically, it's a grind."

No doubt Martelli is more comfortable talking about all this because eye contact has been restored. Nobody knows exactly how 2011-12 will turn out - that's kind of what makes things so interesting on Hawk Hill right now - but the ship has been righted. The Hawks are playing sound ball again, with a 7-3 record including a win over a ranked Creighton team, despite having only one junior and no seniors among the top eight in the St. Joseph's rotation.

So this is an interesting time to ask Martelli the "what was it like" questions. Last season, he was more likely to say, "Fine," boxing you out from his emotions. And he knew other questions were out there, especially among Hawks fans - why was Martelli on the radio or at some civic event? Didn't he know his own record?