Martelli sheds tears, gets last laugh

NEW YORK - You've seen Phil Martelli get angry, edgy, streetwise, sarcastic, proud. You've seen him happy.

This was different. As soon as his St. Joseph's Hawks won the Atlantic 10 tournament on Sunday, Martelli's chin started to quiver. He looked behind his team's bench, where his wife had already broken down in tears.

"I was trying to hold off," Martelli said later. "When I saw her and how emotional she was, I broke."

Did Judy Martelli often get full-on emotional like that after the big ones? She shook her head.

"This was different," she said after the Hawks found out they would play Connecticut on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA East Regional in Buffalo.

In tears on the court, Martelli was back to himself soon enough. When he found out St. Joe's was going to the same site as Villanova and would face the Wildcats if they both won in the first round, Martelli quipped: "I'll call Jay Wright. I'm sure they're flying whatever the biggest plane is . . . A 797. Maybe we can sit in the back."

Martelli said he hadn't seen UConn much. "I hear they have great women's basketball," he said with a little smile - Huskies women's coach Geno Auriemma is his buddy.

But as soon as St. Joe's beat VCU to become A-10 champ for the first time since 1997, Martelli lost it. A lot of things had hit him since the last season ended. He had lost a sister and a sister-in-law. A son had lost his job in the Mike Rice scandal at Rutgers.

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Martelli sheds tears, gets last laugh