Gasping for their last Tourney breath, Hawks find no relief in A.C.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - They lived by the three-pointer all season long, but the Hawks died by it Thursday night.

A team that shoots a blistering 38.4 percent from deep, sixth-seeded Saint Joseph's went cold when it needed to make a few, and fell to No. 3 George Washington, 58-48 in the second round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. The loss dashed St. Joe's faint NCAA Tournament hopes.

St. Joe's was down, but stuck around all game behind 18 points from Ahmad Nivins and a defense that forced 20 turnovers. But whenever the Hawks needed a big basket, the Colonial's 1-3-1 zone gave them an open look from behind the arc - and they missed. After Pat Calathes and Darrin Govens hit from downtown to cut the lead to 34-31 with 16 minutes to go, they went 0-for-12 from three.

"With all the intent that you have it's always a game of skill, and we just didn't have enough skill tonight," St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli said.

The Colonials didn't just shut down the perimeter game, they held the Hawks to 24-pecent shooting and forced 21 turnovers.

"Offense is what lost us the game today," Nivins said. "Usually it's the other way around."

Nivins was the only productive player on offense, going 2-for-3 but hitting 14-of-18 from the line. Rob Ferguson - St. Joe's third-leading scorer - scored two points, and every single Hawk with more than 2 minutes had more turnovers than assists.

And Martelli saw the ball-control problem as a root to his team's shooting problem.

"The shots were fine, the shot-selection was fine, but when you don't deliver a ball, when you don't put it in a guy's pocket when he goes into his rhythm shot, I think that's a challenge. We were shot-challenged all night because our passing wasn't good enough."

(6) St. Joe's 66,

(11) Temple 62

They say it's hard to beat the same team three times in a season, but it's not when you've got Nivins.

The 6-foot-9 junior played all 40 minutes, scoring 18 points and grabbing 11 rebounds to lift the Hawks over the Owls for the third time this year - but it was a close one. In the first 39 minutes, the Hawks' only lead was 2-0, but a Jawan Carter free throw gave them a 59-58 lead with 1:05 remaining, and some more freebees sealed the deal.

After going down four at halftime - Martelli called his team "very, very nervous before the game" - the Hawks got a big push from Carter and Nivins. The two scored 25 of their 31 combined points in the second half to catch the Owls.

In each meeting between the two teams, St. Joe's made big runs in the second half after it was tight early, and while Temple saved its best game of the series for the last one, it still couldn't hold on in the end.

"It was our best defensive effort probably," Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. "We doubled Nivins, which helped us, but he's such a good player that he couldn't be held down for long."

Still, Temple put itself in a position to win the game.

"I'm upset with the loss but I feel like the players and coaches did the best job they could do for preparing," Owls guard Dustin Salisbery said. "They just had a couple good plays - Jawan Carter's jumper [three to cut the lead to 56-54] and Ahmad's second-chance points, and those were critical points in the game."

George Washington proved its tough defense against St. Joe's was far from a fluke, trashing seventh-seeded Saint Louis 60-40 and holding off No. 4 Rhode Island in the final.

Some good outside shooting and a monster game from Will Daniels (29 points) kept the Rams in it all the way, but the Colonials' trapping 1-3-1 defense caused the other four players on the floor fits, forcing 21 turnovers, 15 in the first half.

The Colonials, with the automatic bid, are an 11-seed in the Big Dance, and go up against 6-seed Vanderbilt, while at-large Xavier gets a 9-seed and faces BYU in round one.

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