Hawk Offense Looking for a Point

Earlier this week, the Inquirer's Ray Parillo wrote an article (linked here ) about how a lack of a pure point guard has been a major detriment to the Hawks so far this season. While sophomore Tay Jones is leading the team in scoring, he is playing the point more out of necessity than anything else. In high school, and through roughly a year-and-a-half on Hawk Hill, Tay is a scoring point guard, not one always looking to distribute the ball. This season, Tay has 54 assists to 40 turnovers, for a 1.35/1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

Where do the Hawks turn? One possibility is sliding freshman guard Langston Galloway over to the point. This suggestion was made by Aaron Bracy of Philahoops.com here . Looking at the numbers, Langston has 48 assists to 16 turnovers, for a 3/1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Sliding Langston to the point may give the Hawks' offense some new life and give the team a spark. They certainly need it, as they are now 5-12 heading into tomorrow night's home game against Rhode Island.

While that may be a short-term solution, Hawk coaches and fans are hoping that Chris Wilson arrives at Saint Joseph's next year ready to take the reigns at point guard. I will be speaking with Terry Sanford High School coach Bill Boyette tomorrow about his senior point guard. Check back here on Thursday for the article.

In one last bit of guard-related news, Friends' Central senior guard Devin Coleman continues to list Saint Joseph's as a school of interest. He did this most recently after a 30-point and 12-rebound performance in New York over the weekend. Read about the performance and Devin's list of schools here .

Holy War Recap; Odds and Ends

Again, apologies for the lack of content up here lately. Sometimes other things pop up that make blog updates fall a bit lower on the list of priorities.

Before going into the game, just a quick thought. How nice was it to have Bill Raftery (pictured to the left) on the play-by-play last night? In my opinion, he's the best in the business.

The Hawks played a hard-fought game last night against Big 5 rival Villanova at a sold-out Palestra. The Hawks fell to the Cats 97-89 in a high-scoring affair. In his postgame comments, Hawk coach Phil Martelli said, "Not all losses are losing experiences," and that quote does a lot to sum up the game. While the Hawks did not win, and winning is the ultimate goal, there were a number of positives to take out of the game.

The strengths and weaknesses of this team were apparent to all last night. Guard play, in the form of Darrin Govens and freshmen Tay Jones and Justin Crosgile was a strength. Govens had 19 points, while Jones and Crosgile contributed 16 and 12 respectively. It was one of Govens' best games in his four years on Hawk Hill. What Hawk fans saw out of freshmen Crosgile and Jones, especially in the second half, is hopefully a sign of things to come. Junior forward Idris Hilliard had a monster game, putting up 22 points and 7 rebounds. While guard play was a strength, the frontcourt, aside from Hilliard, was a glaring weakness. Todd O'Brien and Bryant Irwin combined for only 4 points and 9 rebounds in 37 total minutes. The Hawk frontcourt was without freshman forward Carl Baptiste, who was unable to go due to injury

Next year, the Hawks will be receiving help in the frontcourt in the form of Plymouth-Whitemarsh senior CJ Aiken. I should have an article up on Aiken in the coming day or two.

Dick Jerardi's article from today's Daily News is linked below. There is post-game video of Jay Wright, Tayor King, and Phil Martelli on the page as well.



Jerardi Article on the Holy War.



After the Hawks game ended last night, I flipped over to the Kentucky-UConn game. We keep hearing about how good John Wall is. Guess what? He's better than you thought.