Saint Joseph's Tough Season Continues

                In a season that started with such high hopes for Saint Joseph's, picked to win the Atlantic 10 and receiving votes to be ranked in the top 25 before the season, hope has slowly but surely diminished.
A season that began with a 26 point victory over Yale and a thrilling  overtime win over 20th ranked Notre Dame has been nothing but disappointing since.  Saint Joseph's has simply been unable to get into a groove and struggled to close games late, often blowing leads late in the second half.  With bad losses against teams like Fairfield, Saint Bonaventure, and Massachusetts, the Hawks have seen their hopes at qualifying for the NCAA Tournament diminish.  The Hawks seem to often play up or down to their competitions level, playing Butler and VCU tough and pulling out a nice win against Temple, while suffering bad losses to the teams previously mentioned.  Slowly but surely Saint Joseph's has seen its high hopes diminish after returning everyone from the team a year ago.  The La Salle game, in which the Explorers clinched a share of the Big 5 title, seemed to likely be a culmination of a bad season.
                 In order to have realistic hopes of making the tournament with an at-large bid, Saint Joseph's would have had to most likely run the table for the remainder of the season, including a win against a tough La Salle squad today.  The Hawks unfortunately suffered another tough loss after failing to play with sound fundamentals and also looking to struggle with team chemistry as they have all season.  Unlike most games for the Hawks, La Salle prevented the dangerous alley-oops to C.J. Aiken and Ronald Roberts Jr., and kept the team from doing much damage in the lane throughout the game, making Saint Joseph's force tough long-range shots.  Unlike last year, Langston Galloway has not been nearly as sure-handed, shooting a .398 FG% as compared to a .488 FG% a year ago.  The team often looks lackadaisical and lacks energy on the court.  With a lack of depth on the bench, it wouldn't be unrealistic to assume the starters are often worn out and that may be the reason they struggle to hold late leads.  Saint Joseph's continued their streaky play in this afternoons game at the Palestra, at times going on hot streaks, but often going ice-cold for elongated periods of time.  La Salle simply outworked the Hawks and forced the team to play fundamentally poor basketball, forcing bad shots, rebounding poorly and often turning the ball over.  While Saint Joseph's turned the ball over 12 times to La Salle's 14, many of La Salle's turnovers came early in the game and they played much more sound basketball in the second half than the Hawks.  The Explorers out-rebounded the Hawks by 7 and shot nearly 10% better from the field at 62.2% and shooting 62.5% from three-point range compared to 33.3% for Saint Joseph's.  So with another tough loss, the Hawks find themselves looking like a long-shot to make the Tournament unless they can win the Atlantic 10 Tournament to receive an automatic bid.  The Hawk may officially be on life support in 2013 but always remember, THE HAWK WILL NEVER DIE!