St. Joe’s men’s and women’s hoops teams get spotlight in Atlantic 10 preseason polls
The Hawks' men, led by Erik Reynolds II and Xzayvier Brown, were voted No. 3. The Hawks' women, with veteran stalwarts Talya Brugler and Laura Ziegler, were voted No. 2 on their side.
WASHINGTON — The buzz has been building for a few months now around the St. Joseph’s men’s basketball team. It started with guard Erik Reynolds II staying put, then grew with 6-foot-10 Justice Ajogbor transferring in from Harvard. And all along, guard Xzayvier Brown has been preparing for his sophomore season after a great freshman campaign.
On Monday, things got even more real when the Hawks were voted No. 3 in the Atlantic 10′s preseason poll of coaches and media. Only traditional powers Virginia Commonwealth and Dayton ranked higher, and the Hawks got five of the poll’s 30 first-place votes.
Reynolds, about to start his senior season, was picked to the all-conference first team. Brown, last season’s A-10 rookie of the year, made the all-conference second team. Forward Rasheer Fleming made the third team.
Do the accolades translate to expectations for a team seeking its first NCAA Tournament trip since 2016? Not for Hawks coach Billy Lange, or at least that’s what he claims.
“‘Expectations’ is not even a word that’s talked about, so it doesn’t matter,” he said at the A-10′s media day. “I’m boring, so I’ll just continue to be boring, but it’s just not a word that we think about. It’s not a word that’s used in our program. Because we have them ourselves, and it’s daily, it’s day-to-day.”
» READ MORE: St. Joe’s hoops star Erik Reynolds II is sticking with the Hawks
That doesn’t mean they don’t know what’s out there. Reynolds added they do.
“We know what people are saying around us, we’re not really blind to it,” he said. “But [Lange] addresses it every day in practice, to say that we have our own goals and what we want to do within the team. So we try not to focus on outside things.”
Lange made it almost all the way through his news conference without letting his guard down. But when he did for a moment, it was enough to know how big this season could be.
“Is there excitement? Sure, there definitely is,” he said, “because we’ve got great guys, and we’ve got some talented players.”
» READ MORE: Men’s Big 5 Classic to return to Wells Fargo Center for the next three seasons
St. Joe’s women picked No. 2
There are high hopes for the women’s team on Hawk Hill, too, shown by a No. 2 ranking in the poll of the conference’s coaches. A season after winning a program-record 28 games, St. Joe’s got four of the 15 first-place votes, and finished behind No. 1 Richmond by a narrow margin.
Senior forward Talya Brugler (15.6 points per game last season) and junior forward Laura Ziegler (14.3 points and 9.4 rebounds) made the all-conference first team, and senior guard Mackenzie Smith made the second team.
It’s the second year in a row that the Hawks have been picked No. 2 in the preseason, but coach Cindy Griffin acknowledged this time comes with bigger expectations. The Hawks want their first NCAA Tournament trip since 2014, and Griffin set up a nonconference schedule with major trips to Utah and Syracuse.
There could also be a home game vs. Northwestern in a four-team event the Hawks are hosting in late December, with Howard and the College of Charleston the other participants.
“They’re all just preseason predictions, so as much as we love it, we still have to earn where we want to finish, and that’s obviously No. 1,” Griffin said. “We upped our schedule a little bit to get us more prepared for league play. … I’m excited to compete at that level with this team, because that’s what I think we need to get to the next step.”
» READ MORE: Philadelphia to host 2027 NCAA women’s basketball tournament regional games
La Salle looking up from last
The excitement around La Salle’s renovations to its basketball arena, now called John Glaser Arena, didn’t help the Explorers in the preseason poll voting. Both the men’s and women’s programs were picked last among the conference’s 15 teams.
“We understand where we’re picked, but we don’t think about it too much,” men’s coach Fran Dunphy said as he begins his third season at his alma mater’s helm.
“Our No. 1 priority is, are we ready to go Nov. 4 [the season opener vs. American],” he said. “And as soon as that’s over, are we ready to go Nov. 9 [vs. Lafayette], and let’s play our best basketball we can. It’s not only a game-to-game thing, it’s a possession-to-possession thing, that we want to be the best team we can be.”
Explorers women’s coach Mountain MacGillivray did not hide from the fact that his roster has five freshmen and eight transfers, which means a lot of work building chemistry.
“To the person, our returning players and the new players that are coming in made a commitment to really connecting as individuals, and becoming the tightest group that they can become,” he said. “We’ve made a commitment as a group every day to get better. What that’s going to look like at the end of the year, time will only tell, but I think it’s going to look pretty good.”