St. Joe’s falls to George Mason in A-10 tourney semifinals
Goforitradio Staff
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The St. Joe’s Hawks’ run in the A-10 tournament ended on Saturday when they lost to George Mason 74-64 in the semifinals at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.
George Mason(26-7, 15-3) will go on to play Virginia Commonwealth in the championship game of the A-10 tournament, while St. Joe’s(22-12, 11-7), who lost in the semifinals last year, will wait to see if they get a call from the NIT.
The Patriots never trailed in this contest and jumped out to a 14-0 lead to start the game. They had their largest lead of the game at 25-7 midway through the first half. However, the Hawks would finally come alive. Xzayvier Brown, who scored 13 of his team-high 26 points in the first half, kept St. Joe’s in the game, and they went into halftime trailing 37-28.
When George Mason big man Jalen Haynes, who led the Patriots with 22 points, seven rebounds, and a game-high six assists, went out for a brief time in the first half with an arm injury, the Patriots led 37-30, and while Haynes was on the bench, the Hawks went on a 5-0 run to cut the lead to 37-35. St. Joe’s would cut the lead to one after a Brown three with just over 16 minutes left in the game.
However, they could never get over the hump. George Mason would go a 17-8 run to go up 59-49 with over seven minutes left in the game and a 6-0 run to push the lead to 14 with 4:34 to go.
The Hawks had no answers for Haynes, and they got nothing from the university’s all-team leading scorer, Erik Reynolds II, who was reportedly battling the flu. The senior guard finished the game 1-12 from the field, including 0-7 from deep, and scored only four points.
Also, Rasheer Fleming struggled with his shot, as he was 3/11 for the field and 1/9 from deep. Fleming finished with nine points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Anthony Finkley added 14 points.
The Hawks were playing their third game and three days, which may have led to the poor shooting, as St. Joe’s shot only 33% from the field.
For George Mason, Darius Maddox had 19 points, Willy Newton had 11 points and a game-high five blocks, and K.D. Johnson added 12 points off the bench.
Beating George Mason was not going to be easy, and getting off to a bad start didn’t help matters; however, to St. Joe’s credit, they did fight back, but again, it wasn’t enough.
