DeAndre' Bembry scored 27 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead Saint Joseph's (6-2) to a 62-50 win over Princeton at Hagan Arena. Isaiah Miles added 13 points and eight rebounds and James Demery scored 12 points.
Bembry shot 11-for-17 from the field to notch his season-high in points, while grabbing four steals for the Hawks.
Steven Cook was the only player in double figures for Princeton (4-2) with 15 points and seven rebounds, while Spencer Weisz had a game-high 12 rebounds.
Saint Joseph's led 46-37 with 5:10 to play, but Princeton hung around, cutting its deficit to 46-40 on a three-pointer by Devin Cannady with 4:59 to play. Bembry then scored the Hawks' next six points, culminating in an up and under that gave SJU an 11-point lead, 52-41, at 2:40. Princeton answered quickly with a layup by Steven Cook, but Demery threw down a dunk and hit the ensuing free throw to give SJU its biggest lead of the game, 55-43.
Princeton closed to within seven points two more times in the final two minutes, but Miles and Demery iced it, each hitting a pair of free throws in the final 33 seconds.
Saint Joseph's led 28-25 at halftime but both teams struggled at the start of the second by shooting a combined 0-for-13. Bembry stopped that skid with a layup at 16:31 to give SJU a 30-25 lead.
The teams went scoreless again for almost five minutes until Pete Miller scored on a layup to bring Princeton within 35-31 at 9:37. Bembry scored three of his 14 second-half points to build SJU's lead up to 39-31 at 8:44.
"I think it's a big deal not fouling, but calling it the way it is, they just missed the shots. We didn't take advantage of being at home. Win number six does not get win number seven unless we get much better. We have to play better than that," said SJU coach Phil Martelli.
"DeAndre' has been so versatile, and he's been good. My thing is not the shooting and scoring, it's been the turnovers, and he's cut those down. And he's a communicator," said Martelli. "You look up and see he played 40 minutes, so there will be heads in hands saying I'm wearing him out. But all he cared about was winning on December 8th. And if that's what it took, for him to play 40, then that's what it was going to be."
In the early going, Princeton took its only lead of the game, 9-8 at 13:01, but the Hawks then limited the Tigers without a point for the next four minutes, taking a 15-9 lead. Cook broke the Tigers' scoreless string with a three-pointer at 9:52 but the Hawks scored the next six points on threes from Bembry and Papa Ndao to take their biggest lead of the half, 21-12.
After neither team scored for close to four minutes, Princeton ended the half with a 13-7 run to close to 28-25 at halftime.
The Hawks shot 38.6 percent from the field in the game and just 18.8 percent from three-point range. Princeton hit 28.8 percent of its shots, with half of them being three-point attempts as the Tigers went 9-for-33 from behind the arc.
Next up for Saint Joseph's is a visit to Big 5 rival Temple on Sunday afternoon (4 p.m.) with the national telecast on the CBS Sports Network.
