Bubble or no bubble, St. Joe's out to prove in A-10 Tournament

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For the first 3½ months of the season, the Saint Joseph’s Hawks were flying high and, for much of February, looked like an NCAA Tournament lock.

But then March began and St. Joe’s lost its two final games of the regular season, falling back onto the NCAA tourney bubble and making this week’s Atlantic 10 Tournament even more critical (see preview).

How will the Hawks (24-7, 13-5), who earned the coveted double bye by finishing fourth in the conference, respond when they open A-10 tourney play in the quarterfinals Friday at 2:30 p.m. at Brooklyn's Barclays Center vs. George Washington.

“We’re all anxious to go up there,” star senior Isaiah Miles said Thursday shortly before the team bus departed for Brooklyn. “We lost two games coming into this tournament and we’re ready to prove to everybody that we’re one of the best teams in the conference.”

Miles, who was named the league’s Most Improved Player, has enjoyed a special senior season, averaging 18.0 points and 8.1 rebounds per game going into the postseason. And it could have been a special ending to the regular season, too, as Miles reached the 1,000-career-point milestone on senior day.

But the Hawks were upset by Duquesne to spoil the festivities and send them into the precarious position of heading into the conference tourney on a two-game losing streak.

“It’s all about moving on to the next one, not dwelling on one or two games,” Miles said. “We’ve still got life. We still get a chance to play Friday. That’s where we pick up the slack from the last two games.

“It’s tough. You do want to win on senior day. But you’ve still got more games to play. That was my last home game. That wasn’t my last game ever, luckily.”

The good news for the Hawks is that the final week of the regular season isn’t necessarily a great predictor of conference tournament success. Just two years ago, St. Joe’s also lost its final two games of the regular season, including a senior day showdown vs. La Salle at Hagan Arena. And that team, which was even more on the bubble than this one, responded by storming to the A-10 tourney title to book an automatic berth to the Big Dance.

Of course, most of the players from that team are now gone. But one big one remains: DeAndre’ Bembry, then a freshman rising star and now a veteran leader and, most recently, the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year.

“He’s a guy you want to have on your team,” Miles, who played sparingly on that 2013-14 squad, said. “He brings that fire to the game. He allows everyone on the team to feed off that fire. He has that competitiveness and he doesn’t like to lose. Me personally, I feed off it. When I see him get fired up, I get fired up.”

The Bembry-Miles partnership has been especially lethal this season as opposing teams have struggled to contain two of the best players in the conference. It’s also made things easier for the rest of the players on the team, all of whom have nicely settled into their roles.

“They draw so much attention, they make it easier for the role players,” sophomore point guard Shavar Newkirk said. “At any time any person on our team can have a great game.”

Still, there’s no denying that Bembry is the engine that makes the team purr and will give the Hawks the advantage of often boasting the best player in the court in the Atlantic 10 Tournament and then, perhaps, the NCAA Tournament, too.

“He’s tremendous,” Newkirk said of Bembry, the program’s first A-10 Player of the Year since Ahmad Nivins in 2008-09. “He does it all for us — rebound, score, pass, steal. A guy like that, you can build a team around. And that’s what we’ve been doing. We follow his leadership and I’ve been learning from him a lot.”

Newkirk admitted a deep run in the Atlantic 10 Tournament followed by a trip to the Big Dance would be especially meaningful because it’s the last hurrah for Miles and perhaps Bembry, who could leave school for the NBA draft.

It would also be a lot of fun for the underclassmen like him, pointing out that “every kid dreams” of playing on TV during March Madness.

But the Hawks are trying their best to not focus on bracketology (even if ESPN’s is run by St. Joe’s announcer Joe Lunardi) and whether or not at least one win in the Atlantic 10 Tournament would solidify their place in the NCAA Tournament picture.

They’re much more focused on capturing their second A-10 Tournament title in three years — which, of course, would mean they don’t have to worry about anything on Selection Sunday other than where they'll go and who they’ll play.

“I don’t want to think about it too much because when you think about needing one win, you put too much pressure on yourself and the team to win the game,” Miles said. “We don’t want to do that.”

Added Newkirk: “We’re looking forward to just winning the whole thing.”

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