St. Joe`s Wins A-10

Massachusetts held a 16-point halftime lead over No. 18 St. Joseph`s on Tuesday night. Both teams knew the game was far from over.

Marvin O`Connor scored 21 points and the Hawks overcame their biggest halftime deficit of the season for an 84-69 victory that clinched the Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season title.

"We didn`t panic," O`Connor said of his team`s halftime mood. "There was some yelling in the locker room but it was positive yelling at each other."

For Minutemen coach Bruiser Flint, who played at St. Joseph`s the last time they won the regular-season title outright in 1985-86, a run by the Hawks was inevitable.

"We talked about it, we knew they would shoot the ball better," Flint said. "We knew they would start hitting and we just didn`t get it done."

Na`im Crenshaw scored 17 points, Jameer Nelson added 16 and Bill Phillips had 12 rebounds for the Hawks (24-4, 14-1), who have won 10 straight games -- their longest streak since 1996-97 -- and 18 of 19.

The Hawks will be the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament that begins next week in Philadelphia. They also won the regular-season East crown and were the No. 1 seed in 1996-97 but have had three straight losing seasons.

Monty Mack had 15 points, Shannon Crooks added 13 points, Micah Brand scored 12 and Jackie Rogers had 12 points and 11 rebounds for the Minutemen (13-13, 11-4), who had a two-game winning streak snapped and are 0-3 this season against ranked opponents.

St. Joseph`s erased the halftime deficit with a 23-6 run to take its first lead at 56-55. After a dunk by Brand, O`Connor sparked a 12-2 spurt with consecutive 3-pointers. Most of that run came without Nelson as the freshman point guard sat with four fouls and missed almost nine minutes.

Massachusetts was able to get no closer than seven points the rest of the way and finished the half shooting 6-for-30 (20 percent). The Hawks` lead reached 15 in the final minute as they finished 27-of-53 (51 percent) from the field in the game.

"When you go 6-for-30, you`d better have a heck of a defensive team if you want to win a game like that," Flint said.

St. Joseph`s defense, especially inside, was greatly improved in the second half as Massachusetts missed 13 of its first 16 field goal attempts in the half.

"In the first half, they treated our big men like they were invisible," St. Joseph`s coach Phil Martelli said. "In the second half, we tried to front them and be more aggressive."

The Minutemen went on a 16-2 run midway through the first half and led 45-26 with 3:06 left. St. Joseph`s went almost seven minutes without a field goal and trailed 49-33 at halftime.

Massachusetts outrebounded the Hawks 27-16 in the half and shot 50 percent (19-for-38) as it rolled up its highest point total in a first half this season. St. Joseph`s was just 10-for-28 (36 percent) from the field.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Author: 6 ABC - Action News (AP)