Can the Hawks flap past Penn?

The St. Joseph's Hawks visit the Palestra tomorrow night in an unofficial Big 5 City Series games. As evidenced by its struggles Wednesday night against Drexel, the Penn men's basketball team has had a lot of trouble scoring points in recent games. The three-point shots simply are not open anymore, the inside game makes appearances only in spurts, and foul shooting is a never-ending problem. Yet St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli has nothing but praise for the Quakers team his Hawks (8-4) will face on Saturday at the Palestra at 7 p.m. "I believe that they run the best offense of any team we face this year," Martelli said. "Their five-man concepts are just extraordinary." This is a bold statement from a coach whose team has already faced two of the nation's top teams, Villanova and Duke. Even though Martelli knows that Penn (5-5) has not posted big numbers this season, he is still amazed by the Quakers' offense. "I know they score only 67 points per game," Martelli said, "But I'm talking about the way they run their offense. I only wish my team could run its offense as smoothly." Penn coach Fran Dunphy, however, realizes his team has a lot of room for improvement in its offensive game. While he accepts Martelli's praise, he does not necessarily agree with it. "I like what we do on offense," Dunphy said. "Right now I don't care for how we are doing it." A large concern is the recent vanishing act of the three-point game. While Dunphy doesn't see his three-guard offense as having a "bombs-away" approach, he does advocate shooting the three-pointer when it is there. Lately, the open looks have not been there, but the shots have still gone up. "The most critical part is the decision-making process," Dunphy said. "We have to be more judicious about when we shoot." The Hawks are similarly struggling on the offensive end. St Joe's has relied on its defense so far this season, including Wednesday versus George Washington. The Hawks were able to defeat a team which had been ranked highly in the preseason despite shooting only 33 percent from the field. "We can't shoot a lick," Martelli said. "I hope like hell some of our shots go in this time." Dunphy is still impressed by the team concept of the Hawk's offense and also realizes the Quakers will be at a distinct size disadvantage against the Hawks. "While they are not shooting at a high percentage," said Dunphy, "they still have some gunners." St. Joe's relies heavily on its three-guard rotation of Arthur Davis, Rashid Bey and Terrell Myers. All three score over 12 points per game and account for almost 60 percent of the Hawks' scoring. They also put up an average of 15 three-point shots per game. Unfortunately the trio has had trouble finding the hoop this season. Bey has the highest shooting percentage of the group at 38 percent. Yet the contest could bring out the best in the Hawk's bombers. This will not be an official Big 5 game this season, but players and fans are sure to treat it as such. While the Drexel game may have resembled a Big 5 contest in atmosphere, nothing can compare to a matchup of actual Big 5 teams at the Palestra. "This game has a lot of importance for us," Martelli said. "Our players play against their players throughout the summer and we also consider the Palestra to be the best place to play basketball in the entire country." With the struggling offenses, and the history of low-scoring games in Big 5 contests, Saturday's match-up promises to be close-fought down to the wire. "The games never change," Martelli said. "It doesn't matter who the players are."