St. Joseph's nips UMass, 67-64

PHILADELPHIA (WWLP) - Saint Joseph's freshman Langston Galloway converted all six of his 3-point field goals and finished with a career-high 25 points as the Hawks picked up their first conference win of the season with a 67-64 victory over UMass on Saturday night at Hagan Arena. UMass dropped its second game on the road this week and stands at 13-9, 5-4 in the A-10 heading into a week off. The Hawks are now 6-17 with their first A-10 win to stand 1-8.

Down five with 20 seconds left, Javorn Farrell made on free throw and missed the second, but Sean Carter grabbed his season-high 15th board of the game and found Anthony Gurley for a 3-pointer that cut the UMass deficit to one. After Idris Hilliard made two free throws with 12 seconds left, Matt Hill was fouled on a rebound with 3.1 seconds left. When the front end of his 1-and-1 missed, the Hawks secured the rebound as the clock ran out.

Galloway was unconscious midway through the second half as he nailed three treys during a 16-3 SJU run to give the Hawks a 50-37 advantage with 8:31 left in the second half. That run also included Charoy Bentley hitting a whirling over-the-head layup and converted the foul shot for the and-1 with 13:50 left in the half.

Down by 13 points with 8:44 left in the second half, UMass rallied to cut the deficit to just one at 53-52 on a barrage of Freddie Riley 3-pointers. Riley had three treys to bring UMass to within one with 4:10 left in regulation.

UMass senior and leading scorer Gurley was limited to a season-low 10 points.

The Hawks outscored UMass 13-5 to end the first half to take a 27-23 lead at intermission. Saint Joseph's worked the shot clock all half and finished the stanza with a pretty pick-and-roll lay-up by Todd O'Brien with nine seconds left. Sean Carter led UMass with six points and eight rebounds in the half.

The teams combined to shoot 34 percent in the first half: UMass 10-of-30 and SJU 10-of-29.

Saint Joseph's was playing without its leading scorer Carl Jones (18.0 ppg), who suffered a sprained right ankle in practice this week.

UMass will have a full week off before returning to action on Sunday, Feb. 13, as the Minutemen host George Washington at 4 p.m.