Phil Martelli was ready to go about his normal procedure of announcing personal awards to the entire team when DeAndre’ Bembry stopped his head coach.
Bembry was named Atlantic 10 Co-Player of the Week and Big 5 Player of the Week on Monday. However, with St. Joe’s losing its last two games — to city rivals Penn and La Salle — the Hawks’ super sophomore didn’t want his achievements mentioned to his teammates.
While Bembry is happy with the monster numbers he has put up this season, he would much rather trade them for more wins.
Well, on Saturday he walked away with both.
Bembry had a huge game and St. Joe’s rallied from down double digits for a 75-70 win over Davidson at Hagan Arena (see Instant Replay).
“We know that winning this game will definitely give us some energy going toward the next ones,” Bembry said. “We just started playing defense, got consecutive stops, and that helped us on offense.”
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Bembry scored 21 points, grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds and dished out seven assists for the Hawks (9-11, 3-5 Atlantic 10), who won for just the third time in their last 10 games.
“The year that DeAndre’ is turning in is really going to end up in the annals here, not just at Saint Joseph’s but in Philadelphia,” Martelli said.
St. Joe’s needed every bit of him and more against Davidson.
The Hawks found themselves down early, thanks to a blistering shooting performance from long range by the Wildcats (14-5, 5-3 A-10). Davidson, the A-10’s top three-point shooting team, made 8 of 17 attempts from beyond the arc in the first half. That included a stretch just before intermission when Peyton Aldridge (game-high 24 points) drilled three consecutive triples. He added another three at the first-half buzzer to give Davidson a 13-point lead at the break.
So what was said at halftime to help the Hawks turn things around?
“Really, the message was enough with all the nonsense,” Martelli explained. “'Well, he said … they did’ … That’s for little boys. That’s not for Division I players.”
“There wasn’t anything really big that was said. It was just us coming out ready just to get on it,” Bembry said.
The simplistic approach worked because the Hawks came roaring out in the second half. They had a newfound energy as they got one shot to fall and then another and another. Before Davidson could blink, St. Joe’s had ripped off a 20-3 run to open the second frame and take the lead.
“We just have to play with confidence and shoot the ball with confidence,” said Aaron Brown, who scored a career-high 20 points in his first start for the Hawks. “That’s one of our main problems. We’ve been struggling with shooting."
That wasn’t an issue in the second half Saturday. St. Joe’s shot 60.0 percent from the field and 55.6 percent from three-point range after intermission to help it outscore Davidson 47-29.
The Hawks’ offense turned efficient once they finally started clamping down on the Wildcats’ shooters. SJU held Davidson to just 33.3 percent shooting in the second half.
And when things got tight down the stretch, surprisingly it was the young St. Joe’s team Martelli said “played a little bit older” that was able hang on for the much-needed win.
“I thought we would score enough in this game,” Martelli said. “If we would communicate and we would shot challenge we were going to be all right and that’s what we did. We communicated and we shot challenged.”
“We just stuck with it and that has a lot to do with our character,” Brown said. “We’ve been in situations all season long where we just needed to just keep fighting and keep fighting. Today we kept fighting, got the lead and we held on to it.”
The ability to fight back is a key ingredient that St. Joe’s hopes can begin to get its season turned around on the right track.
That and a lot of Bembry. A whole lot of Bembry.
“A lot of people will say, ‘Oh, he’s a horse and you’re riding him,’” Martelli said. “He ain’t no horse, man. He’s like the whole … however horses travel, if they travel in packs, he’s the whole pack.”