| Even this year when the St. Joseph's Hawks
are struggling to stay above the .500 mark, every game and the
atmosphere at the Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse (St. Joes home court) and
the Palestra (St. Joes sometime home court and Penn's home court) is
exciting. The only thing college basketball is missing right now
is good afros, where are the Zeffy Penns of the world these days?
Anyway, besides a few scattered pictures of afros this page is going to
be more about some of the great college basketball teams in Philadelphia
as well as some great college basketball games. Those bastards at
St.Joes took some of my old writing down that I did back in college
about the Hawks....But I was able to scrounge some of it up.....here is
a little article I wrote about one of the best games at the Fieldhouse
at least when I was still in school anyway (way back when when we used
to walk through 10 feet of snow to get to Barbelin).....
February 5th (2001) - Nelson's Hail Mary highlights one of the
best games at the Field House, ever.
I'm still lazy on my hawk reports, but man what an awesome game last
Thursday night at the field house. When you think of great games
at the Alumni field house three come to mind. The upset of
Umass,when they had John Calipari at the helm and were ranked, the upset
of Tennessee last season and the buzzer beater by Naim Crenshaw against
Fordham last year to win in overtime. An oldie but goodie comes to
mind too, but its not so favorable, of course its always mentioned, and
was actually in the movie about Hank Gather's life that aired on TV a
few years back. One in which St.Joes
led in the waning moments, when out of nowhere Bo Kimble, the Loyola-Marymount
standout and brief NBA star, hit a half court heave that silenced the
hawk faithful and removed the hopes of an upset. Upset you say,
well yeah it would have been an upset for the Hawks, in hindsight at
least, Loyola did get to the final eight, did they not ? Anyway,
all things considered it was a great couple weeks for the Hawks.
They lost to a tough Xavier Musketeer team at the top of their game and
on their turf, beat Rhode Island handedly at home, disposed of a gritty
Penn team on their home floor(even though it was considered a Hawk's
home game, being that it was at the palestra and a big five game), and
then came Bonaventure. All my ranting above was directed toward
their match up with the Bonnies, the Hawks couldn't shake St.Bonaventure,
even though at one point they led by about 12 with 10 minutes or so to
go in the game. The Bonnies charged back with an unbelievable
scoring spurt, by an unlikely source, J.R. Bremer, who nailed at least 4
threes in the second half and gave St. Bonaventure a 5 point lead with
only 30 seconds to go. The Hawks came down the court and Nelson
drove, on this drive he was fouled and only made 1 of 2 foul shots.
St.Bonaventure was then fouled by the Hawks, but they also only made 1
of 2 foul shots. So the hawks came back down, and the Hawks
basically just flew by anything Brown on the court, and scored an
uncontested lay-up. So here's the situation, 18 seconds or
so and a three point Bonaventure lead. So of course the hawks foul
again, but again St.Bonaventure, I think Bremer, hit only 1 of 2 foul
shots. So now the Hawks have a little air, its only a 4 point lead
for the bonnies, so the hawks come down and nelson gets a quick finger
roll layup to make the game only a 2 point contest, people who were
starting to walk out the door now turned around, actually to be fair to
the St.Joes fans, the whole place was still
occupied. After this quick layup, Bonaventure got the ball into
the best foul shooter on the court: Marques
Green. Green made the first, but missed the
second by inches, thus giving the Hawks an outside shot to tie the game
with only 6 seconds left. When this happened, Eric Woods grabbed
the rebound and stood perplexed for a second trying to decide
whether he should call timeout or not, he made a very smart and decisive
decision, getting it to Nelson rather then opting for the timeout.
Nelson then raced the ball down the court, reminiscent of Tyus Edney in
the NCAA tournament for UCLA, if you don't remember this just ignore it
hehe. When he got near what would have been an NBA three he heaved
the ball, everyone stood up and it went in, it pardon my french, fucking
stuck a dagger in Jm Baron's back hehe. The whole place erupted
like some Volcano in Costa Rica, and everyone was jumping up and down
cheering The Hawk will never die, and Its not over etc... All the fans
in the place had a sense, intuition, whatever you want to call it, that
the overtime was just an afterthought, the Hawk wasn't dead, but the
Bonnies were indeed finished. In OT, the Hawks made almost all of
their foul shots in overtime and sealed the victory 104-97, winning
easily in extended play. This is the biggest SJU victory as of
late, they stayed in the running for first place in the A-10 and also
gave themselves a really really good shot at getting a good seed in the
NCAA's. IF the Hawks can beat Xavier Wednesday night, then I don't
see why they don't get something higher then an 9 in the tourney,
barring any catastrophes. Oh please God, bar catastrophes, this
season has been magical......
And it was magical, people.
The 2000-2001 season is forgotten by most St.Joes fans because the
Hawks would falter in the 2nd round against a very good Stanford
Cardinal team. But that season marked the end of the Hawks NCAA
Tournament drought and the beginning of their winning ways. The
following year they would make the NIT, followed by a loss in the NCAA
Tournament in 2002-2003 with a not so healthy Delonte West. The
magical season then began for the Hawks in 2003-04
One notable game in the 2002-03 season was a game on March 5th 2003
where a Xavier team with future NBA player David West and sharpsooters
Romain Soto and Dedrick Finn came to the Fieldhouse. The Hawks who were
down and out in the game (and without Delonte West!), down by 14 at one
point midway through the second half mounted an enormous comeback.
The Hawks came back basically on the strength of a 33 point performance
by Jameer Nelson who had Allen Iverson type numbers (13-34
shooting). However, Xavier would eventualyl win the game in
overtime, but at one point when the Hawks took the lead after being down
14, I was yelling in my dad's ear at the game and he couldn't hear me at
all, it was unbelievably loud and just a really great time, even though
they lost the game in OT .
St. Joseph's 2003-04 season undefeated season
In 2003-04 the St. Joseph's Hawks had one of the best big five guard
tandems in the big five ever with Delonte West and Jameer Nelson.
The Hawks also had a deadly sharpshooter by name of Pat Carroll, who
could drain threes easily and often. The season began with some
expectations, everyone knew that with a healthy Delonte West and an
ever-improving Jameer Nelson, that they could easily get back to the
NCAA tournament.
More on this later.......
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