St. Joe’s holds off La Salle’s wild late rally to advance in the A-10 men’s tournament

WASHINGTON — The end came for Fran Dunphy and La Salle on Thursday. Now to see whether it’s the start of something for St. Joseph’s.

The Hawks prevailed over the Explorers, 75-70, in the Atlantic 10 tournament’s second round, holding off a wild late rally to win the teams’ fourth meeting of the season. St. Joe’s ended up winning three of them: this one, the Big 5 title game in December, and the home game on Hawk Hill last month. La Salle won its home game last week in Dunphy’s final game on a Philadelphia court.

Up next for the Hawks is a quarterfinal matchup with No. 3 seed Dayton on Friday night at Capital One Arena (7:30 p.m., Peacock).

The first stat to check when watching the Hawks is usually Erik Reynolds II’s field goal shooting. He started the night 1-for-6 from the field, and finished the night 2-for-7.

Xzayvier Brown picked up the slack with 15 points and six rebounds, and Anthony Finkley hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer to send St. Joe’s into halftime with a 36-27 lead.

» READ MORE: A salute to La Salle’s Fran Dunphy, who stepped up to save three Big 5 schools when they needed him

At the other end, La Salle star Corey McKeithan shot just 1-for-6 from the field, and nearly added injury to insult in the last minute of the first half. He got in an ugly-looking collision with Brown when he tried to intercept a Derek Simpson pass near midcourt.

Brown stretched out his right arm to catch the loose ball, but caught McKeithan’s neck instead. No foul was called, which left La Salle fans understandably annoyed. The game was eventually stopped a few seconds later because McKeithan was shaken up, but he was able to continue.

St. Joe’s led 68-47 with 3 minutes, 46 seconds to go, and it looked like the game was decided. But the Explorers mounted an astonishing comeback from there, including four three-pointers and a free throw by McKeithan.

All of a sudden, it was just 69-64 when Andres Marrero hit a layup with 22 seconds to go. Finkley then hit two free throws at the other end, only for McKeithan to nail another three to cut the margin to 71-67 with nine seconds left.

The margin got down to 73-70 with four seconds remaining thanks to a Deuce Jones three-pointer. But Brown finished things off at the free throw line, capping off his team-high 21 points.

McKeithan ended up with 29, including 25 in the second half.

» READ MORE: Eric Dixon wasn’t about to let Villanova’s weird season and Kyle Neptune’s tenure end against Seton Hall

St. Joe’s coach Billy Lange had a long embrace with Dunphy in the postgame handshake line.

“I told him that I love him,” Lange said afterward, as he told the story of Dunphy’s help in earning his first college job: a move from Bishop Eustace High to the former Philadelphia Textile in 1996.

“He’s always raising every boat,” Lange said. “I just think the world of the guy.”

He also admitted he was “glad we didn’t have to play La Salle anymore — it was more than the Rocky sequels, it felt like.”

Brown called it “supercool” to have the honor of being the opponent in Dunphy’s finale, adding that he’s known the coaching legend since a third-grade summer camp.

When Dunphy’s turn on the podium came afterward, he offered many reflections.

“It stings when you come upon this last game, and the emptiness is absolutely staggering,” he said after his 1,005th game as a head coach. “For me, on a personal note, I’m good. I appreciate the opportunities that have been given to me — it’s been ridiculous, to be quite frank. Nobody should be this fortunate.”

That has long been one of his favorite lines, and it was no surprise to hear it one more time.

“I will be grateful to these guys on my left, and all the other 14 of them, for allowing me to coach them for this year, and then ‘Dre’ for two years before that,” Dunphy said, with McKeithan and Marrero in the adjacent seats. “And then all of those guys that played for me at Penn, at Temple, and here at La Salle, I thank them profusely.”

After over 20 minutes of remarks on his career, his past and present players, and a range of other subjects, Dunphy left the stage to applause from the assembled staff and media.

The news of author and longtime Washington Post college sports writer John Feinstein’s death at age 69 shook the city he long called home. Many of the journalists on press row Thursday knew him, no matter where they hailed from.

Feinstein had planned to be at the Atlantic 10 tournament starting Thursday. The conference left his assigned seat open with his press credential on it as a tribute.

Dunphy got the news from a mutual friend, famed former Maryland coach Gary Williams. (A South Jersey native, by the way, a fact that is often overlooked.) It hit Dunphy hard enough that he took an hour away from work to go for a walk.

“A really good guy, and a really good friend,” he said, briefly choking up. “I’m sorry for that loss for our community — the basketball community, the sportswriting community.”

Along with chronicling D.C.-area college teams of all sizes, Feinstein was a regular visitor to Philadelphia. He was a devotee of the Army-Navy football game (including many years on Navy’s radio broadcasts), loved the Palestra, and often lamented the lack of a Big 5-esque series in the nation’s capital.

Georgetown and Maryland, the region’s great powers, famously refused to play each other for years and still rarely do. The Hoyas haven’t played George Washington since 1981, despite the schools sitting just two miles from each other.

Feinstein was scheduled to be one of the panelists at Monday’s annual Coaches vs. Cancer breakfast fundraiser at the Palestra. Among the many luminaries set to attend are Dunphy, Phil Martelli, Herb Magee, and two of Feinstein’s longtime friends in the media: former Daily News writer Dick Jerardi and former Philadelphia and New York Daily News writer Dick “Hoops” Weiss.

Tickets for the event are still available at cvcbreakfast.acsgala.org.

» READ MORE: At Penn, a whiteboard and ‘hustle’ turned a 2-6 start into a trip to the women’s Ivy tournament

Late last month, Feinstein wrote a column praising Dunphy upon the news of the coach’s retirement. It ended up being his next to last piece for the Post. The final one, on Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, coincidentally was published on the morning of Feinstein’s passing.

Feinstein’s many friends in Philadelphia included Weiss, longtime Inquirer columnist Mike Jensen, and the late former Associated Press writer Jack Scheuer. It was always an occasion when the three of them sat together on press row, especially at the Palestra.

“He was as big a non-Philadelphia supporter as we ever had,” Dunphy said. “Dick Weiss and I had a bunch of discussions about perhaps making him an honorary Big 5 Hall of Famer, because he tooted our horn tremendously.”