"But we didn't have that look for 40 minutes at five positions. That's what we have to work on."
Chaz Williams paced UMass (14-4, 3-1) with 22 points, while Raphiael Putney added 17.
Ronald Roberts came off the bench to lead the Hawks with 16, and Halil Kanacevic added 11. But the Hawks' two leading scorers, Carl Jones (four) and Langston Galloway (eight), were missing in action.
Their ineffectiveness was due in large part to the UMass defense - both in half-court sets and within the context of a full-court press. The Minutemen scored 21 points off 16 St. Joe's turnovers.
"We were anticipating their length," Martelli said. "We explained to our guys how it would be. But it's hard to simulate it.
"Just length, and offensively we had a couple guys trying to do too much. And we need to set better screens to help Langston and Carl. We come out of there with neither one of them in double figures, we're going to lose most nights."
After each team sank a three-point shot to open the game, the Hawks went on a 17-0 run and held the Minutemen scoreless for 6 minutes, 16 seconds. Papa Ndao's trey gave the Hawks a 20-3 lead, but UMass countered with a 13-0 run, which sliced its deficit to 20-16. The Minutemen led at halftime, 33-32.
After the Hawks pulled within 59-57 late in the second half, Williams clinched the game for UMass at the line by shooting 100 percent (8 for 8) in the last 58.1 seconds.
"They're a team that plays spurt basketball," Martelli said. "We wanted it to be more of a possession game. In the first half, I don't think we did that. I think we let it get into a spurt game.
"But individual frailties come up in a game like that."
