College Basketball
Bad shot choices hurt Saint Joseph’s in Loss to Charleston
Philadelphia: As everyone knows in sports when you play in an in-season event like the Big 5 Classic, one of the questions is how you move on with the rest of your season & that is what we saw on Tuesday night as the Saint Joseph’s Hawks would go to battle with the Charleston Cougars from Hagan Arena. The Hawks come into the game at 6-3 while Charleston made their way to Hawk Hill with a 6-2 record.
Lineup:
Starting lineup for the Hawks against Charleston #THWND pic.twitter.com/wN7rdZOcJJ
— SJU Hawks MBB (@SJUHawks_MBB) December 10, 2024
How the game went:
Early on the Saint Joseph’s Hawks would get the party started by jumping out to an 8-0 lead before Charleston got on the board & then later on, The Cougars would take their first lead of the game at 17-16 & then the Hawks retook the lead at 18-17. One of the plays in the first half was this monster dunk from Saint Joseph’s Justice Ajogbor
Justice. Is. Served.
7:18 1st | SJU 26, Charleston 25#THWND pic.twitter.com/7xD36RUGQO
— SJU Hawks MBB (@SJUHawks_MBB) December 11, 2024
Following the dunk, the Hawks got the lead back up to 9 with the last one being 43-34 with 1:23 left & Cougars got it down to 7 as the Hawks took a 43-36 lead into halftime.
One of the questions going into the second half was could the Hawks continue what they did in the first half and soar to the win & early on in the second half, the answer would be YES as they got the lead up to 11 at 63-52 with 11:45 left. The Game would change from there as the Cougars would start to make stops and fight back to get the game tied at 65 with 6:51 left. Both teams would try to go for the knockout punch but Charleston would have the bigger moments & Hawks Erik Reynolds would struggle in this game as his shot was just not going. Rasheer Fleming would try to keep the Hawks in the game.
Later on, the Cougars would make the big shots down the stretch especially when Saint Joseph’s needed a stop on defense when this happened
AJ SMITH 💥💥💥 pic.twitter.com/3JC7PiYjeT
— Charleston Basketball (@CofCBasketball) December 11, 2024
The Hawks would have a final attempt to get the game tied and you see what happened
FINAL
Charleston 78, Saint Joseph’s 75
The Hawks can’t get a good look at a game tying 3, and after Charleston was down as many as 11 in the second half, they’ll leave Hagan Arena with a win. pic.twitter.com/IqDBVCKDrz
— Cope (@JakeCopestick) December 11, 2024
This was a very bad loss for the Hawks as when you have an opponent down like they had the Cougars, you need to finish them off and down the stretch some of their shot choices were very questionable and you just can not have games like that, you need to finish them off.
Postgame:
Saint Joseph’s Coach Billy Lange:
Interesting response from Saint Joseph's coach Billy Lange about their shot selection down the stretch in their bad loss to Charleston #THWND #COFCvsJoes pic.twitter.com/XylCePm0ok
— David Malandra Jr (@DaveMReports) December 11, 2024
Charleston Coach Chris Mack:
Final Numbers:
What is next:
The Hawks, are now 6-4 on the season & will now attempt to get back to their winning ways as they go to battle with American on December 18 at Hagan Arena while the Charleston Cougars are now 7-2 on the season & head home for battle with Wofford on December 16