St. Joseph's defeated by Xavier, 68-55

CINCINNATI - St. Joseph's had one thing going for it entering Wednesday night's game here. Still, having history on its side didn't exactly give the Hawks much of a reason to look on the bright side.

St. Joseph's was the last Atlantic Ten Conference team to defeat Xavier at the Cintas Center, and that was almost six years ago. On this night, however, the game couldn't have gone much worse for the visitors, who learned just before tipoff that they would be without Carl Jones, their injured leading scorer.

Despite a scrappy effort, St. Joseph's couldn't overcome Jones' absence and the home team's early second-half scoring flurry and suffered a 68-55 loss to Xavier in front of 9,919.

Jones, who averages 17.2 points per game, has been battling a sprained ankle since mid-December. And the Cintas Center isn't the place where a visiting team wants to go to battle without the conference's leading scorer.

Xavier (13-5, 4-1 A-10) has won 43 consecutive conference games at home. The Musketeers' previous conference loss at home came against St. Joseph's on Feb. 28, 2006. Mark Lyons scored 17 points Wednesday night, and point guard Tu Holloway had a season-high 12 assists.

The Hawks (12-7, 2-3) have lost three of their last four games this season and four straight against Xavier in Cincinnati.

Considering Jones' absence and the fact the young St. Joseph's team isn't very deep even with its star guard, the Hawks not surprisingly fell behind by nine points midway in the first half.

But St. Joe's then started to show why it's been one of the A-10's surprise teams. Sophomore guard Langston Galloway went on a personal 7-0 scoring run, capping it with a four-point play with 6 minutes, 51 seconds remaining in the half. That sliced the Hawks' deficit to 28-26, and they didn't let up the rest of the half.

Sophomore Ronald Roberts Jr. continued to provide a scoring spark off the bench, giving St. Joe's a 33-32 lead with 4:41 remaining. That capped a 14-4 run for the Hawks. Roberts ended up scoring eight points in the last 51/2 minutes of the half, helping St. Joe's head to the locker with a 39-37 lead.

The Hawks kept the momentum going in the first minute of the second half, scoring four straight points to take a 43-37 lead. But the good times stopped there for St. Joseph's.

Unfazed, Xavier started aggressively driving the ball to the basket each time down the court. That resulted in a 14-0 run - with every field goal coming in the paint or at the free-throw line - to give Xavier a 51-43 advantage. The Musketeers, who have won four straight games, never trailed the rest of the way.

Roberts broke a scoring drought of 5:12 for the Hawks on a driving dunk with 13:55 remaining in the game to cut the deficit to 51-45.

Roberts and Galloway led St. Joseph's with 14 points each. Sophomore forward Halil Kanacevic scored 13 points and grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds.