Saint Joseph's soars to victory over UMass

AMHERST, Mass. - The return home was a much happier one this time around for the Saint Joseph's basketball team.

Isaiah Miles scored 20 points and the Hawks moved into a tie for first place in the Atlantic 10 with a 74-57 victory over UMass on Wednesday night at the Mullins Center.

The Hawks (23-5, 12-3 A-10) were not in a celebrating mood after losing Saturday night at Davidson - their first blemish away from home this season - but a victory and some help from George Mason, which upset VCU, 76-69, made everything all right again.

"It's a great night," said Miles, who was 4-for-5 on three-pointers as the Hawks finished 10-for-22 on the perimeter. "But we've been in first place once, and we have to take advantage of the opportunity.

"Luckily we got another opportunity to be in first place again, and we can't take that for granted. We have to hold onto that spot."

With three games to play in the regular season, Saint Joseph's shares the top spot with VCU and Dayton, which was idle, at 12-3.

While returning to the top, the Hawks hit some rough patches - including Andre' Bembry (18 points, nine rebounds) being in second-half foul trouble - against UMass (12-15, 5-10). However, the Hawks pulled through by taking care of the ball (10 turnovers) and holding UMass to 2-for-22 from three-point range.

"We have to play better, we missed a lot of layups and we settled at times for shots, but we were back to our way," Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli said. "We don't turn it over, we don't foul you and we guard the three-point line."

The Hawks also shot rather well at 44.8 percent with Aaron Brown (14 points) and Lamarr Kimble (10) finishing in double figures. UMass was led by Donte Clark's 20 points and Jabarie Hinds added 19, but leading scorer Trey Davis finished with just four, which was 15 points below his average.

"I've got a lot of respect for Saint Joseph's," UMass coach Derek Kellogg said. "I think they're either really close or they are the best team in the conference. They're pretty well put together with maturity and talented guys."

After falling behind 10-4 at the onset, Bembry and Miles each hit a three-pointer to get the Hawks rolling on a 25-10 run that resulted in a 29-20 lead with 6:08 left in the first half. Bembry and Kimble hit consecutive threes to close the run.

"We started off a little slow, it was a little fast-paced both ways with a lot of fastbreaks," said Bembry, who picked up his second foul with 1:42 left in the first half but returned in the final 15 seconds to score a basket that put the Hawks up 35-31 at the break.

"Second half. we kind of calmed a little bit more even though I got in foul trouble, but toward the end we calmed down, got the team zoned in and just made the right plays."

Bembry picked up his third foul just 32 seconds into the second half, but the Hawks shook that and a few turnovers off to lead 54-40 with 12:37 left. Even after Bembry went to the bench at 12:05 with his fourth foul, the Hawks were able to maintain a 14-to-17-point lead for the next few minutes.

The Minutemen, who held a 40-24 edge in paint points, chipped the deficit down to 59-51 with 6:14 left before Bembry returned to finish the job. A 12-0 run just about sealed it for the Hawks with 2:52 left and leading 71-51.

"The road man, the road," Martelli said, after his team improved to 10-1 at opponents' sites. "I'm proud of our group for the way they have responded to the road."

Freshman Pierfrancesco Oliva missed the game due to illness, so Papa Ndao started in his place.