Roberts rules Dayton in Hawks' win

THE CRAZIES at Hagan Arena knew something special was happening.

It started with a layup. Then there was a prayer to beat the shot clock. A windmill dunk here, a layup there.

By the time Ronald Roberts was finished, he had scored the final 15 points over the game's last 5 minutes and Saint Joseph's walked away with a much-needed 77-63 win over Atlantic 10 leader Dayton. Much to the delight of his biggest fan, Roberts even made his foul shots.

"Phenomenal," said teammate Langston Galloway. "He even had the Tim Duncan backboard shot going on."

At one point, the students began chanting at the helpless Dayton defenders, "You-can't-stop-him." And they were right.

Roberts finished his career night by hitting 10 of 11 field goals and scoring 27 points, nearly tripling his season average of 10.1.

"I was just really confident shooting my shots," said Roberts, whose previous career high was 20. "My shots were going down so I just kept shooting."

The adage in basketball that it doesn't matter who starts a game, but rather who finishes was proven last night.

"He doesn't get his name called [in pregame introductions] and I'm sure that every kid wants to get his name called at the beginning of the game so that he can dance or whatever it is they do when they announce their names," said the 57-year-old Hawks coach Martelli. "You are talking about a guy who is going to be in the conversation, and is probably a leading candidate for sixth man of the year in a magnificent league. Some guys would pout, but that's not the way he's been raised."

The Saint Joseph's ship that sailed to a 10-3 start had taken on water lately. There was some soul-searching going on at Hawk Hill after five losses in the Hawks' most recent seven games, including an 84-80 loss to Penn in which they trailed by 23.

Last night's win improved St. Joe's to 13-8, 3-3 in the A-10, and came a day after Martelli held personal meetings about both academics and basketball with each player.

"We have not played [good] basketball in a month," the coach said. "One of our keys to this game was to be ourselves. It's good enough."

Martelli mentioned that his team had stopped making the high-flying, momentum-grabbing plays like blocked shots or alley-oop dunks. Center C.J. Aiken, who is second in the nation in blocks, seemed to take it as a personal challenge.

"Coach talked to me before that if I'm not scoring sometimes I [mentally] get out of the game," Aiken said. "I knew I needed to stay in the game so that the whole team could stay in it. If I do my defensive part, then I know we can stay in it."

During one series in the first half, Aiken had a steal, strong rebound and a blocked shot to give the Hawks' faithful a charge. Aiken had 14 points and five blocks on the night.

Dayton (14-6, 4-2) seized a five-point halftime lead after hammering St. Joe's on the boards, 27-14, and limiting the Hawks to eight field goals and 32 percent shooting. Those numbers changed after intermission when the Hawks shot 70 percent from the floor and held their own (15-15) in rebounding.

"Coach came in at halftime and wrote on the board, 'The glass, the glass,' '' Roberts said. "He wrote it twice."

Roberts, a sophomore from Bayonne, N.J., met up with his parents for postgame dinner.

"I was happy that he made his free throws, so that was a plus," said his father, Ron, who played with Stacey King and Mookie Blaylock on some terrific Oklahoma teams in the late 1980s. "When I saw him making his free throws, I knew he was going to have a great game."

Roberts, who came into the game shooting an unattractive 50.7 percent from the stripe, was 7-for-9 last night.

And about that postgame meal?

"We're going to Wawa," Mr. Roberts bellowed. "He only had [three] rebounds."

The NCAA last week closed the case of Hawks transfer Todd O'Brien by siding with Saint Joseph's and denying O'Brien's petition to play at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, where he is enrolled as a graduate student. O'Brien was a reserve the previous two seasons for St. Joe's, which declined comment on last week's ruling . . . Up next for St. Joe's is a visit to Temple on Saturday. The Hawks are 2-6 on the road, 2-1 on neutral courts and 9-1 at home . . . Leading scorer Tay Jones had just eight points, but had eight assists and just one turnover in 30 minutes. He incurred Phil Martelli's ire when he drew a second-half technical foul.