Galloway's 30 powers Saint Joseph's over Fordham

PHIL MARTELLI was incredulous in October when Langston Galloway was not named to any of the top three Atlantic 10 preseason teams. He was nearly as incredulous Saturday when Galloway, so good all season, had no juice in a Saint Joseph's home loss to Charlotte.

Well, the blocking/dunking/ three-point show was back on display at Hagan Arena last night against Fordham after that 40-minute intermission disguised as a game. The Hawks displayed near-perfect offensive efficiency with an amazing 24 assists on 25 field goals. Galloway was about as good as efficient - tying his career best with 30 points on just 14 shots.

And the Hawks rolled the Rams, 80-62.

"That can't be right," Martelli said of the assist totals.

That was not predictable. This result was very predictable. St. Joe's is the best shooting team in the A-10, Fordham the worst. The Hawks also complete a very nice exacta by having the league's best field-goal defense.

And they have Galloway, who came into the game shooting 48.8 percent from the arc. He shot 7-for-9 from three against the Rams.

"We had some individual Come to Jesus meetings [after the Charlotte loss]," Martelli said. "Those guys responded."

One of those guys was Galloway.

"Calling it the way it is, Langston spent all last week [at practice] and didn't say a word," Martelli said.

His team is not going to be able to play, the coach said, if Galloway is "somewhere else."

Wherever he was, the quiet kid from Louisiana returned from "that trip away."

Galloway's dad taught him to shoot when he was 4 years old. His uncle, Hawks assistant Geoff Arnold, got him out of Baton Rouge to 54th and City Line. The sophomore wing is doing the rest.

"I started on 8-foot [hoop] and worked my way up," Galloway said,

Last night, the hoop seemed to be very close even when Galloway was far away.

"This time last year, I was going through a struggle and just couldn't get it together," Galloway said.

Recently, he was "stressing too much, trying to make the ball go in."

When Galloway is good, the Hawks are very difficult to beat.

"We're not going to be successful unless he and Tay [Jones] are two of the three or four best players on the court every game," Martelli said,

The Rams (7-9, 0-3 A-10) shot just 33.8 percent. St. Joe's (12-5, 2-1) shot 58.3 percent in the second half and 49 percent for the game, as the numbers played out like the season history suggested.

C.J. Aiken very quietly scored 15 points on just eight shots. He not so quietly blocked six more shots.

It took Fordham double-double machine Chris Gaston eight shots to make one and 18 shots to get 15 points. The Hawks' interior defense was the issue there.

St. Joe's power forward Halil Kanacevic loves playing against zones. After getting eight points and eight assists against the Rams, he now leads the team in dimes.

Ron Roberts had an interesting night off the Hawks bench. He had 11 of his 12 rebounds in the first half. He was also 1-for-10 from the foul line.

The teams combined to shoot just 31-for-58 (53.4 percent) from the foul line, but the Hawks were very good from the arc (12-for-24, 50 percent).

"If we shoot like that, we're going to be hard to beat for a lot of people," Martelli said.

St. Joe's had 11 wins each of the last two seasons. So, with 12 wins already, those seasons are officially yesterday's news. Now, the Hawks are in the heart of the league schedule with the conference looking quite unpredictable.

"The three teams that are 2-0, you'd have won a lot of money if you thought that was your trifecta after two games," Martelli said before he knew last night's scores. After Dayton and Charlotte lost, La Salle is now the only unbeaten team in league play.

St. Joe's is a factor in the A-10, but, right now, just about everybody is a factor.

"We played to a full house Saturday and we didn't encourage them to come back by our kind of flat performance," Martelli said,

Last night, they were not perfect, giving up 18 offensive rebounds to Fordham and sort of letting the Rams hang around longer than seemed necessary. But 80 will win most nights. Getting 30 or something close from Galloway is also going to be a number that should find the Hawks in the winner's circle just about every time.