Saint Joseph

Amber Harris scored a season-high 23 points and No. 6 Xavier earned its 10th straight win with a 63-56 victory over visiting Saint Joseph's in a women's basketball matchup last night. Xavier (19-3, 9-0 Atlantic 10) opened with an 11-0 run and never trailed. The Hawks (12-12, 4-4) used an 11-0 run that cut the lead to 59-56 with 55 seconds left. Michelle Baker led Saint Joseph's with 12 points. In another women's game: At Temple, the Owls (18-6) scored 39 points in the second half en route to a 66-54 win over UMass (9-15)

Saint Joseph's was unable to hang on to a one-point halftime lead and fell to Virginia Commonwealth, 74-63, in first-round women's NIT action at Hagan Arena last night. The Hawks (17-15), who led at the half, 37-36, found a second-half shooting surge from VCU hard to contain. Ashley Logue (17 points) led Saint Joseph's. Courtney Hurt (29 points) and D'Andra Moss (27 points, 11 rebounds) led VCU, who face Hofstra in the second round. In another WNIT game: Richmond cut short Delaware's WNIT run with a 67-49 final at the Carpenter Center.

Saint Joseph's men's basketball program, yesterday, announced its opponents schedule for the 2010-11 season and it includes 11 games on campus, in Hagen Arena. The Hawks will open at home against Western Kentucky and will then travel to Penn State to take on the Nittany Lions at the Bryce Jordan Center. In all, the Hawks will face 15 teams that reached postseason play last season. The University of Minnesota of the Big Ten will be visiting Hawk Hill, as will Siena, the three-time defending MAAC champion that is now coached by former Villanova assistant Mitch Buonaguro.

WASHINGTON - Saint Joseph's had the height advantage, but the Hawks had no answer for the hot shooting of American's Charles Hinkle in their 66-60 loss last night at Bender Arena. Hinkle, a senior forward, scored a career-high 32 points, including 17 in the first half, and did most of his damage from the perimeter, away from the size and shot-blocking ability of Saint Joseph's (5-3). The Hawks' height made it difficult for American (7-2) to take it inside and helped them control the tempo early.

SAINT JOSEPH'S and SportsRadio 610 WIP have announced a new partnership for the airing of Hawks' men's basketball beginning this season. The Saint Joseph's broadcast team of Matt Martucci and Joe Lunardi will return for their third season together, while Lunardi is entering his 22nd season as the Hawks' color analyst. WIP will also be the home of head coach Phil Martelli's "HawkTalk" radio show, which will air once a week beginning in January.  

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.

La Salle, Saint Joseph's and Temple have plenty of tournament teams on their schedule this college basketball season. La Salle will play 14 teams that reached the postseason last year, Saint Joseph's will play 15 such teams and Temple 16. The Owls, the three-time defending Atlantic 10 champion, will have at least 10 nationally televised games. One is at defending national champion Duke on Feb. 23. The schedules: LA SALLE Sunday, Nov. 7: Philadelphia University (Exh.

The Atlantic 10 Conference released its 2008-09 schedule yesterday with Temple, La Salle and Saint Joseph's all showcasing demanding itineraries. Temple faces Tennessee (Dec. 13) at the Liacouras Center and travels to the Allen Fieldhouse to meet defending NCAA champion Kansas (Dec. 20). La Salle hosts Florida State (Nov. 18) before a first-round date against UConn (Nov. 21) in the annual Paradise Jam Tournament in St. Thomas. Saint Joseph's will play its home games at the Palestra while the Alumni Fieldhouse gets a revamp.

Dwayne Lee was a member of the Atlantic 10's all-defensive team this season and had made only two three-pointers in Saint Joseph's first three games of the National Invitation Tournament. But sometimes everything can change in a New York minute. Perhaps Lee's biggest shot of the season is sending the Hawks to the Big Apple. His three-pointer with 1 minute, 18 seconds to play allowed the Hawks to hang on for a 58-51 victory over Texas A & M in the NIT quarterfinals last night at Reed Arena.

PAT CARROLL will be inducted into the Saint Joseph's men's basketball Hall of Fame on April 13. Carroll, who starred for the Hawks from 2001-05, will be remembered as one of the finest perimeter shooters in Saint Joseph's history. He owns the school records for career three-point field goals (294), three-point percentage (.445) and three-point attempts (661), while setting the single-season marks in 2004-05 for three-pointers (135) and attempts (311). The 6-5 forward tallied 1,324 points in his career, ranking him 25th on SJU's all-time list.

PHILADELPHIA will be an NIT kind of town Wednesday night, with Drexel, Saint Joseph's, and La Salle all hosting games that night in the consolation tournament. Drexel (27-6) hosts Central Florida (22-10) at the Daskalakis Athletic Center at 7:15, Saint Joseph's (20-13) hosts Northern Iowa (19-13) at Hagan Arena at the same time, and La Salle (21-12) hosts Minnesota (19-14) at Tom Gola Arena at 7. The most interesting thing about the bracketing: If the Hawks and Dragons win, they are headed for a second-round matchup.

THE ATLANTIC 10 and Big East start their conference tournaments today with a healthy number of teams eyeing up hitting the refresh button on Joe Lunardi's bracketology page. Locally, Temple is playing for NCAA seeding. But Saint Joseph's and La Salle need to make serious runs and Villanova needs a miracle. Here's a look at the three league's starting today: Atlantic 10 Regular-season champ: Temple won its second title in 3 years. But it's the first outright A-10 championship since 1989.

Shey Peddy of Temple was named player of the year and defensive player of the year, the Atlantic 10 Conference announced Wednesday. Peddy is the first to win the dual honors since fellow Owl Candice Dupree received the same two awards in 2005 and 2006. The conference's 14 head coaches did the voting. Other awards went to Dayton's Andrea Hoover (rookie of the year), Charlotte's Epiphany Woodson (best sixth player) and Richmond's Becca Wann (most improved player). Jim Crowley, who led St. Bonaventure to an unbeaten record in the league and a No. 19 national ranking in the Associated Press poll, was voted coach of the year.

ATLANTIC 10 THIS WEEK STANDINGS Conference Overall W- L Pct. W- L Pct. Temple. . . 11-3 .786 22-6 .786 Saint Louis. . . 10-4 .714 22-6 .786 Xavier. . . 9-5 .643 18-10 .643 St. Bonaventure. . . 9-5 .643 16-10 .615 Saint Joseph's. . . 9-6 .600 19-11 .633 Massachusetts. . . 8-6 .571 19-9 .679 Dayton. . . 8-6 .571 18-10 .643 La Salle. . . 7-7 .500 18-11 .621 Duquesne. . . 6-8 .429 15-13 .536 Richmond.

KINGSTON, R.I. - Even though Rhode Island scored 16 points off 14 Saint Joseph's turnovers, Hawks coach Phil Martelli was anything but frustrated. "I'm not frustrated at all," Martelli said after St. Joe's prevailed, 80-69, last night in an Atlantic 10 game at the Ryan Center. "We came here to win a game. We won this game. Now we have work to do for Saturday's game [at George Washington]. "This idea of being frustrated . . . we have 17 wins. We had 11 last year so enough with everybody being like we should be frustrated.

KELLY CAVALLO scored a team-high 14 points as Saint Joseph's cruised to a 64-53 victory over Atlantic 10 foe Rhode Island in a women's basketball game at Hagan Arena last night. Ashley Prim and senior guard Michelle Baker combined for 13 of Saint Joseph's (17-8, 7-4 A-10) first 21 points as the Hawks hit 10-of-13 field goals in the opening 8 minutes of action. Emilie Cloutier had a game-high 17 points in the loss for Rhode Island (1-25, 0-11 A-10). In other women's games: * At the Liacouras Center, Temple cruised to a 75-54 win over fellow A-10 opponent George Washington.

VILLANOVA COACH Harry Perretta will have to wait another day to collect a win, but he did coach his 1,000th game as coach of the Wildcats in a 79-73 loss to Big East rival DePaul last night. Perretta became the seventh coach across all NCAA divisions to coach 1,000 games at the same institution. However, despite a team-high 22-point effort from Laura Sweeney, Villanova (15-9, 5-6 Big East) snapped a two-game winning streak. Sweeney also scored her 1,000th point after entering the game at McGrath-Phillips Arena in Chicago with 998 points.

RICHMOND, Va. - Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli pulled guard Carl Jones aside Tuesday on the eve of an Atlantic 10 Conference game at Richmond. The coach told Jones, a junior from Ohio, that he did not believe in scoring slumps, but he did believe in poor play. "I told him, 'I got you,' and I wanted to play better," Jones said last night, after scoring 16 points as the Hawks came out strong in the second half and posted a 70-60 win over the Spiders. Jones, who entered the game with a scoring average of 16.1 points, failed to reach double digits in three of the previous four games and missed the game with Xavier on Jan. 18 with an ankle injury.

IN PRETTY MUCH every game, someone on Ss. Neumann-Goretti High's basketball team is likely to surpass 20 points. Several someones, sometimes. On the occasions when John Davis, a 6-4, 190-pound forward, isn't among them, you won't see frowns or hear him muttering. "Even when I'm not scoring, I'm still going to be helping my team," he said. "I'll be getting those rebounds or giving off those assists or making those hustle plays. "We know how things work. We're going to keep feeding the hot guy, whichever one it is. That's just how we do it. It's kind of a non-conscious thing.