St. Joe’s gets crucial A-10 win at La Salle to position itself for pivotal month of February

By Kyle Morello (@Kylemorello4)

PHILADELPHIA — Saturday afternoon marked the 56th time Saint Joseph’s and La Salle have shared the court together as Big 5 foes. Despite the deep familiarity between the two programs, it seemed to be a day of firsts at John E. Glaser Arena, which ended in a 67-58 win for the visiting Hawks.

It started off before the ball was even tipped. The two men on the sidelines, St. Joe’s head coach Steve Donahue and Darris Nichols for La Salle, had never coached against each other before. Not only that, but it was the first time either had coached in this double entendre version of a league game, where the two schools faced off as both Atlantic 10 opponents and Big 5 rivals. 

For Donahue in particular, who has coached in numerous Big 5 games as both an assistant and head coach at Penn, he knows how special these games are. 

“I’ve been through a lot of these in different ways,” he said. “Never thought I’d be involved in the St. Joe’s-La Salle one, and I was thrilled to be a part of it. I hope we can keep this going in this crazy era of NIL and what needs to be done for us to promote ourselves in our own league, because we do have something special. And I know this was an A-10 game, (but) I felt it was a Big 5 game. That’s just how I’m wired.” 

It was also a first of this instance for Nichols, who unlike Donahue, is in his first year coaching in the Big 5. Still, it’s easy to pick up on the energy this rivalry brings out in the fans.

“I felt some more energy than it’s been,” Nichols said. “Especially when you’re trying to build something and trying to create energy. You want it to feel like that every game.”

For the micro perspective of the game, it was another first for St. Joe’s Dasear Haskins. The redshirt sophomore forward tied a career-high with 20 points, and set a personal best with six threes made, all in the first half, too. Despite the team’s struggles shooting the ball from deep this season (St. Joe’s shoots 30 percent from beyond the arc), it doesn’t affect how Haskins or the rest of the team stays ready to make an impact.

“We believe in our work,” he said. “We work very hard. Our coaches trust in us a lot. All of us after practice were shooting and just bonding and stuff like that, so that little slump of us shooting wasn’t nothing for us. We stayed confident in each other and believe in our work.”

The Hawks are among the hottest teams in the A-10 right now. They’ve won six of their last seven games, and now sit at 6-3 through the first half of conference play. It’s the first time St. Joe’s has started league play 6-3 since the 2015-16 season, where the Hawks wound up winning the A-10 tournament and punching a ticket to the NCAA Tournament.

There’s no telling on how this season will end up for St. Joe’s. To say they’re destined for the same ending as that season would be quite a reach, especially with the prowess at the top of the conference (Saint Louis is pretty, pretty good if you haven’t heard). But there’s no denying that the Hawks are playing their best basketball in a long, long time. 

If the Hawks keep playing the way they have over the last few weeks, it could end up being another first (in quite some time) for St. Joe’s fans: A team that is defying expectations and has battled through adversity to become the best version of itself, as it enters the most critical time of the season.