St. Joe’s up-and-down season continues with a 78-75 home loss to College of Charleston

It’s been a season of high highs and low lows for the St. Joseph’s men’s basketball team, and its 78-75 home loss to College of Charleston on Tuesday night had both on display.

“It was just a good game,” Hawks coach Billy Lange said. “If it went another five minutes, perhaps we win. But they’re a good team.”

After successfully defending its Big 5 title on Saturday night against La Salle, St. Joe’s (6-4) struggled to maintain its momentum late against Charleston (7-2).

» READ MORE: St. Joe’s has another Big 5 Classic championship but a long season ahead to keep ‘attacking’

The Hawks led, 43-36, at halftime but saw their cushion fade as the Cougars made more three-pointers in the first six minutes of the second half than they did in the entire first period. A 15-2 run helped Charleston take the lead with 6 minutes, 23 seconds remaining, and the Hawks never led again.

St. Joe’s also had 15 turnovers, its second-highest total this season.

“I actually thought our defense, despite what the numbers say, was actually pretty good,” Lange said. “There was some transition possessions off of a miss or [an] untimely turnover that was like an undefendable basket pushing the ball and in transition. We missed some timely shots. We had some timely turnovers.”

Junior forward Rasheer Fleming had a career-high 26 points for the Hawks, besting his 25 points last week against Princeton. Less than eight minutes into the second half, sophomore guard Xzayvier Brown reached double-figure scoring and finished with 14 points and six assists. Brown has scored in double figures in every game this season and 11 straight dating back to 2023-24. Junior guard Derek Simpson added 11 points, seven rebounds, and six assists.

Erik Reynolds II had a rough night, with six points on 2-for-10 shooting and four turnovers to go with six assists and five rebounds. Despite making 10 of 18 shots in a 24-point outing against La Salle, the senior guard is averaging 12.2 points on 33.8% shooting over his last five games.

» READ MORE: Was St. Joe’s losing to Princeton at home bad? Yes, but it might not be in March.

“You got to love them and believe in them. You got to look to see if there’s anything technical at this point of a guy’s career that you can make a tweak to,” Lange said of Reynolds’ slump. “It could be a toe, it could be his legs, it could be his follow-through, it could be anything. So you got to evaluate that and then you got to decide whether or not you’re going to make that change now.”

For the Cougars, junior guard AJ Smith finished with 18 points, followed by senior forward Ante Brzovic with 17.

“I thought we did a great job. I thought the team did a good job. We sank in there. We made [Brzovic] travel. We made him pick it up. We made him hesitant,” Lange said. “He got 17 points, but if you told me he was going to do it on 17 shots and four turnovers, I think we’re going to win a game.”

The Hawks look to bounce back when they host American on Dec. 18 (7 p.m., ESPN+).