Ahmad Nivins

When it was finally over, St. Joseph's forward Ahmad Nivins expressed appreciation for the journey. "Triple overtime," Nivins said as he shook his head in wonder at yesterday's 92-86 victory over Rhode Island. "It was exhilarating. It was fun. I'm just glad I got to do it with this group of guys. " A crowd of 6,310 watched at the Palestra, which is serving as St. Joe's home this season while the Hawks' Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse is being upgraded. The Hawks won their second straight game for the first time this season.

Phil Martelli expected the rust to show. Exam week brings that every season. Playing its first game in 11 days, St. Joseph's struggled through the first 10 minutes against Cornell last night, falling behind by 13 points. "Clearly, the way we started the game, they lose that little bit of edge," the Hawks' coach said. But thanks largely to double-doubles by Ahmad Nivins and Idris Hilliard, the Hawks overcame that deficit and eked out a 71-67 victory last night at the Palestra.

St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli paced in front of the Hawks' bench and admonished his team to turn up the heat against host Louisville in the NABC Classic last night at Freedom Hall. Despite a strong second-half effort by sophomore forward Ahmad Nivins, the Hawks could not overcome an early deficit and fell to the Cardinals, 74-64. It was a matchup of storied programs from the Atlantic Ten and Big East conferences, but for most of the game, the Hawks (5-3) could not get anything going against a stingy Cardinals (4-2)

Former Saint Joseph's center Ahmad Nivins, who was drafted in the second round by the Dallas Mavericks, has signed a contract to play professionally in Spain. Nivins, who was Player of the Year in the Big 5 and Atlantic 10 last season, will play for Manresa in the ACB League. He will be the first rookie in 4 years to play in the ACB League. The Mavericks picked Nivins 56th overall. Dallas will retain Nivins' NBA rights. Nivins, of Jersey City, N.J., led the Hawks with 19.2 points and 11.7 rebounds per game last season.

Ahmad Nivins of St. Joseph's has been named the Big Five player of the year by the Herb Good Basketball Club. Nivins will receive the Robert V. Geasey Trophy at the club's 64th annual banquet Monday at the Savoy in Pennsauken. Joining Nivins on the all-Big Five first team are Villanova's Dante Cunningham and Scottie Reynolds, Temple's Dionte Christmas, and La Salle's Rodney Green. Temple's Lavoy Allen and Ryan Brooks, Villanova's Corey Fisher, Dwayne Anderson and Reggie Redding, and St. Joseph's Tasheed Carr were named to the second team.

Villanova and Saint Joseph's first played each other on Jan. 15, 1921. The Wildcats won, 31-22. From 1921 to '39, the teams met 13 times with Villanova winning 12. The teams didn't meet again until 1955, which started a streak of six consecutive Saint Joseph's victories. The rivalry: Villanova leads series, 41-24 The teams have split the last six games, with five of the games being decided by double-digit margins. Interestingly, the closest game was in 2004, a seven-point Hawks win, the year of Saint Joseph's 27-0 regular season, a team led by Jameer Nelson and Delonte West.

Ahmad Nivins will travel with the team to Cincinnati as St. Joseph's prepares to play 14th-ranked Xavier, but the junior center's status is still up in the air for tomorrow's big game. The 6-foot-9 Nivins sprained his right ankle during Monday's win over Villanova and then stayed home and missed St. Joe's 102-88 loss at Duquesne on Wednesday. "He shot [Thursday]," coach Phil Martelli said. "The level of pain has decreased. The level of swelling has decreased. " Nivins is listed as questionable for the noon Atlantic Ten game.

Phil Martelli has changed his stance a bit when it comes to discussing St. Joseph's forward Ahmad Nivins. "I said at the beginning of the year that if at the end of the year Ahmad is in the conversation for Atlantic Ten player of the year, then we have a chance to be a good team," the Hawks coach said last night after a lopsided 85-64 win over Towson. "And now I've reduced it to each game, to be honest with you," Martelli said. "If he's not the best player on the floor each night out, then we're really going to struggle.

St. Joseph's dropped its third straight game late Wednesday when it fell in St. Louis, 73-71. The Hawks are 2-4 this month and have fallen into fifth place just a little over a week after sitting atop the Atlantic Ten Conference standings. St. Joe's had won nine of 10 games - including a 7-0 mark in January - heading into its Feb. 12 showdown with Temple. But the Hawks were clipped by the Owls and lost to another Big Five rival, La Salle, two days later. St. Joe's then had to travel to another time zone to face a St. Louis team that had won four of five coming in. The Billikens trailed by four early in the second half, but they went ahead for good, 49-46, on a Kevin Lisch three-pointer with 11 minutes, 32 seconds left.

Former Saint Joseph's center Ahmad Nivins, who was drafted in the second round by the Dallas Mavericks, has signed a contract to play professionally in Spain. Nivins, who was Player of the Year in the Big 5 and Atlantic 10 last season, will play for Manresa in the ACB League. He will be the first rookie in 4 years to play in the ACB League. The Mavericks picked Nivins 56th overall. Dallas will retain Nivins' NBA rights. Nivins, of Jersey City, N.J., led the Hawks with 19.2 points and 11.7 rebounds per game last season.

Ahmad Nivins had to wait nearly 4 1/2 hours to hear his name called in last night's NBA draft. And he actually did not get to hear it called, as ESPN was in a commercial break when Dallas took the Saint Joseph's senior with the 56th pick, 5 minutes before midnight. "They came back on and they were talking about something else, maybe a trade, and I saw my name at the bottom," Nivins said from his home in Jersey City, N.J. "I was actually on the phone with someone. I said, 'They picked me.' I dropped my phone.

Ahmad Nivins of St. Joseph's has been named the Big Five player of the year by the Herb Good Basketball Club. Nivins will receive the Robert V. Geasey Trophy at the club's 64th annual banquet Monday at the Savoy in Pennsauken. Joining Nivins on the all-Big Five first team are Villanova's Dante Cunningham and Scottie Reynolds, Temple's Dionte Christmas, and La Salle's Rodney Green. Temple's Lavoy Allen and Ryan Brooks, Villanova's Corey Fisher, Dwayne Anderson and Reggie Redding, and St. Joseph's Tasheed Carr were named to the second team.

Not many of them want the college basketball experience to end. Nonetheless, few make it as obvious as Ahmad Nivins did yesterday at Boardwalk Hall, after Temple proved once again its still has a death grip on St. Joseph's, using its superior depth and scoring balance to boot the Hawks out of the Atlantic Ten tourney and, in the process, probably end their season. Nivins is the 6-9 senior from Jersey City who went to Hawk Hill four years ago, a gangly wide-eyed teenager with a bright smile and a lot of raw talent.

The act of shooting a basketball through a hoop, something quite crucial for winning games, has frequently seemed like a mystery to St. Joseph's. The Hawks' occasional penchant for going long stretches without scoring has cut into what little time Phil Martelli devotes to sleeping during the season. And for much of the first half of yesterday's Atlantic Ten Conference tournament game against Charlotte at Boardwalk Hall, it looked as if lousy shooting would lead to St. Joe's demise.

ATLANTIC CITY - Ahmad Nivins climbed down from the interview podium and spotted his high school coach in the back of the room. Nivins and Bob Hurley Sr., the legend from St. Anthony in Jersey City, hugged and then chatted. It was a scene as old as the sport. Nivins and the Saint Joseph's Hawks had just beaten Charlotte in the first round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament, 72-62. Nivins had scored 15 points, grabbed 14 rebounds and acquired at least a dozen bruises from the nonstop battering that is an accepted element of his game.

It's a potential problem with which St. Joseph's will gladly contend. The mission is simply stated as the fifth-seeded Hawks (16-14) get ready for their first-round game today against 12th-seeded Charlotte in the Atlantic Ten Conference tournament at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall - to squeeze into the field of 65 for the NCAA tournament, they must win four games in four days. Impossible? No. Xavier proved it could be done in 2006 when it beat St. Joe's in the final, but is the only A-10 team to do it. Improbable?

The only thing that mattered yesterday for St. Joseph's was a victory, not the identity of its opponent nor the site of its game to end the regular season. The Hawks won for only the second time in their last eight games yesterday, defeating Fordham, 71-54, at Rose Hill Gym. That was an encouraging sign for them as they enter the Atlantic Ten tournament Wednesday, even if the Rams finished the season 3-25. "Any time you go in off a win, it's definitely a plus," Hawks center Ahmad Nivins said.

Surrounded by three St. Bonaventure players crowded under the basket, St. Joseph's forward Ahmad Nivins gathered in a rebound and was fouled as he tried to go back up and score. It was another day at the office for the 6-foot-9 senior, although yesterday was his last regular-season home game for the Hawks. Nivins' two free throws gave the Hawks a seven-point advantage with about four minutes left, and St. Joe's went on to wrap up a 73-62 victory before a crowd of 6,088 at the Palestra.