Xavier falls to St. Joe's in opening round

[Svoboda]

BROOKLYN - Junior guard Langston Galloway buried two free throws with 1.4 seconds left to give 10th-seeded Saint Joseph's a 58-57 lead - and soon after, the victory - over seventh-seeded Xavier in an Atlantic 10 tournament first-round thriller Thursday at the Barclays Center.Semaj Christon fouled Galloway as he drove through the lane on the Hawks' final possession. Galloway made the first shot and returned from a timeout to bury the second.Xavier convened once more to set up its last play. Isaiah Philmore's buzzer beating shot bounced off the back of the rim to preserve the Hawks' win, devastating Musketeers players before they walked off the court.Senior Brad Redford knelt near the 3-point line, his head down, and other players groaned when the final buzzer sounded.The Hawks (18-12) not only bounced the Musketeers (17-14) from the conference tournament, but also forced them to return to campus early to await any news of a postseason bid. An NCAA tournament trip won't be in the cards for a Xavier team that needed the conference's automatic bid to reach an eighth straight Big Dance.Xavier would have had to win four games in four days in Brooklyn for the A-10 title. Saint Joseph's squelched that plan while distancing itself from its regular-season finale loss at Charlotte - in which it shot 29.2 percent and scored just 40 points in the program's lowest-scoring affair since 2007.The Musketeers dropped a second straight game despite Travis Taylor's 16 points and nine rebounds, Redford's 14 points, and Christon's 10 points, four assists and three steals.Christon buried two free throws with 1:07 left to give Xavier a 57-56 lead before the final set up Galloway's free throws. Galloway finished with a Saint Joseph's-high 14 points and made all four of his free throws throughout.The game was a back-and-forth affair all night, but a Xavier second-half run was supplanted by the Hawks' 12-0 stretch late in the game. Fueled by consecutive 3-pointers by Carl Jones and Halil Kanacevic, the Hawks jumped ahead by five points.Xavier endured a six-minute field goal drought that ended with a Redford 3-pointer at the 4:54 mark. The trey pulled the Musketeers within two, and Philmore's 3-point play cut its deficit to one with 2:31 to go.Justin Martin converted two free throws to give Xavier a 55-54 lead with 2:04 left. Although Jones made two ensuing free throws for one-point Hawks lead, Christon answered with the makes that gave Xavier the temporary edge.The victory afforded Saint Joseph's a respite in a season that largely has fallen short of expectations. The Hawks were picked to win the A-10 regular-season title in the preseason poll but weren't in the mix down the stretch and arrived in Brooklyn.But the team now advances to meet second-seeded VCU at 6:30 p.m. Friday in an A-10 quarterfinal.

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