Billy Lange is entering his sixth season as Saint Joseph's coach. (Photo: Saint Joseph's Athletics/Atlantic 10 Conference)
By AARON BRACY
October 30, 2024
SAINT JOSEPH’S 2024-25 Big5Hoops.com Preview Package
-Saint Joseph’s 2024-25 Capsule Preview
-Saint Joseph’s Player Spotlight Story: Erik Reynolds II
-Saint Joseph’s Preview Podcast
Season Preview Story
High expectations are nothing new to Saint Joseph’s and coach Billy Lange. Only this season, they are coming from outside of the program.
Now entering his sixth season at the helm, Lange has assembled a talented roster that features four players receiving NBA interest: 6-foot-2 senior guard Erik Reynolds II, 6-2 sophomore point guard Xzayvier Brown, 6-8 redshirt freshman guard Dasear Haskins, and 6-9 junior forward Rasheer Fleming.
In the transfer portal, Lange added 6-3 guard Derek Simpson from Rutgers and 6-10 center Justice Ajogbor from Harvard. Simpson is a lockdown perimeter defender, and Ajogbor is a proven rim protector who led the Ivy League in blocks last season. Add in talented rotation players Antony Finkley and Shawn Simmons II, and Saint Joseph’s clearly has the talent to end the Hawks’ seven-year NCAA tournament drought.
Coaches and media have recognized this, picking the Hawks third in the league’s preseason poll, behind Dayton and league favorite VCU. There is preseason excitement on campus, in internet message boards, and at St. Joe’s tap room hangouts that hasn’t been seen in the program in years. Lange is not oblivious to all of this, but he’s internally focused on the Hawks’ own expectations, which, he says, he’s had from Day One.
“Ignore would probably be the wrong word, but the other wrong word would be to overemphasize it,” Lange told Big5Hoops.com and CityofBasketballLove.com of outsiders’ expectations during a recent interview. “There’s been expectations in this program from the first time I stepped foot on Hawk Hill. They just might be more realistic now because of the continuity, the development of our guys, and the talent. But we’ve always had expectations. I’ve talked about a national championship since the first day here.
“We’ve held ourselves to a high standard. That part hasn’t changed, but it’s people like (reporters and fans) bringing external noise. But it’s not a bad thing. This is a good thing. It’s all about how we handle it. If we had a vision for being what we want to be, this day was going to come sooner or later. You just keep growing and learning on how to address it.”
A Group Lange Loves
Lange and his staff have shown both the ability to recruit good local players and to develop them. Development was a major part of his role with the 76ers, where he spent six seasons prior to taking over as Hawks head coach in 2019. But the St. Joe’s head coach still is looking for more on-court success, as the Hawks have yet to have a winning record in the A-10 in his five seasons. (In fairness to Lange, the roster needed a rebuild due to a bevy of transfers when he took over, and COVID-19 certainly didn’t help the rebuild process, as it negatively affected others.) A potential NCAA tournament team last season was derailed by a home loss to Texas A&M-Commerce, and the Hawks finished 9-9 in the A-10. They made a good run in the league tournament, losing to VCU in the semifinals, before a strong showing at Seton Hall in a first-round NIT loss to eventual champion Pirates that ended their 2023-24 season.
Reynolds avoided the transfer portal and NBA draft to return for what could be a historic season, as he is 499 points shy of Jameer Nelson’s all-time St. Joe’s scoring record and 87 three-pointers short of Langston Galloway’s mark for career makes from beyond the arc. Brown returns after a stellar rookie season in which he was voted the A-10’s Rookie of the Year. Fleming has impressed NBA scouts with his versatility and wing span. And the Hawks look like they have the on-court pieces to be a force in the A-10 and a team that could hear their name called on Selection Sunday. Lange loves what he has—both on and off the court.
“I love the group of guys that we have,” he said. “They are strong character, they’re loyal, the majority of them are home-grown. They have a genuine care for each other. I know that sounds like coachspeak, but it’s not. There’s a natural love in our program that’s built because of the way these guys conduct themselves on the court, but the way they are off the court and the people that they are, it’s just a great group to be around.
“Continuity. People committed to a vision. They’ve built a vision, they’ve built a culture. The longer you’ve got certain people around that have been committed to each other, it just continues to grow. This is the most continuity that we’ve had, and these guys take a great level of pride in their place at St. Joe’s.”
A Snapshot Look
Now, with the pieces in place—along with, for the first time during his tenure, high expectations from the outside—Lange and the Hawks will look to make their mark in 2024-25. Here’s how Lange views some of his key players:
–Brown: “X is rock solid. Has an amazing mom. An amazing father. Very faith-filled family. I’m not concerned about anything getting to that guy’s head at all. If anything, I want to elevate him to believe that he’s as good as we believe. If there’s a guy who can handle additional expectations, it’s X Brown.”
–Reynolds: “Legacy is determined by people on the outside. You can’t define your own legacy. I don’t even want him distracted by that. The thing I’ll encourage him the most about is celebrate who he is. Be you. He’s a light-shiner. The basketball piece will speak for itself. I just want him to be true to who he is.”
–Haskins: “Put on close to 20 pounds. He ranks among the best guys I’ve seen that takes full advantage of this (redshirt) time. He’s had a heck of a preseason. We’re very high on what he can bring. Mind and body expanded.”
–Simpson: “He fits us. He’s dynamic. He can score off the point, he can score off the dribble, he’s a very good defensive player.”
–Ajogbor: “He brings us shot-blocking, lob-catching. (Ajogbor and Simpson) are competitive and they’re mature and they’re experienced.”
–Finkley and Simmons: “They’re not the same player. They each have unique skillsets. They know what a season is. I want them to be confident that that experience has value. They should play with great confidence.”
(Author’s Note: Lange wasn’t asked about Fleming in this interview but previously has said repeatedly that Fleming’s leadership and faith, in addition to his obvious basketball skills, are hugely important to the Hawks.)
Flying On Their Own Course
It all gets started for St. Joe’s on November 4 against Navy with a schedule loaded with quality opportunities, many of which likely will be Quad 1 games. There’s no denying that there are legitimate expectations on the Hawks, both externally and internally. For Lange and his squad, the focus will be on, pardon the cliché, getting better each day and focusing on their own expectations and not what others think.
“Expectations is not even a word that is talked about,” Lange said at A-10 media day on October 7. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not a word that we think about. It’s not a word we use in our program. We have them ourselves, and it’s daily, day to day.
“Can you imagine if you just waited to have expectations in our program because other people have them on the outside? You’d be wasting time. And we don’t waste time. Every day, what we do matters on a daily basis. And we don’t need to talk about that stuff.”
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Aaron Bracy has been covering Philadelphia sports since 1996. His byline regularly appears on Associated Press stories. Follow Bracy on X: @Aaron_Bracy and like his Facebook and Instagram pages. His book on the 2003-04 Saint Joseph’s men’s basketball team is expected to be published on March 1, 2025. Read a summary and preorder it by clicking HERE. Contact him at aaron@big5hoops.com.