The Massachusetts men’s basketball team fought early but came up short 83-58 against the still undefeated St. Joseph’s Hawks last night at the Mullins Center in front of a season high 5,912.

The Hawks (25-0, 14-0 Atlantic 10) came out firing in the second half building a 24-point lead off of a 22-8 run less than seven minutes in. Delonte West started the run with a quick three and four different St. Joe’s players contributed. The Minutemen (9-16, 3-10 A-10) were unable to get much going as their shooting and a tenacious St. Joe’s defense posed the biggest problem.

UMass got off to a quick start up 13-9 at the 11:34 mark. The Hawks hit five buckets in a row, but the game remained in the Minutemen’s sight as the first half lead never broke 10.

The Hawks led by six with just two seconds remaining, but the strength of the Hawks offense was made apparent by two quick UMass mistakes making the lead 10 going into the half.

“The end of the first half hurt,” coach Steve Lappas said. “Two seconds to give up three plays like that. Like I told them in the locker room, I said, ‘you can’t make three mistakes in two seconds against a team that good and not expect to pay for it.’ You don’t know, but at least you would have liked to see what it was like to be down six and maybe cut it to three. They really haven’t been in that many games to see what would have happened so that would have been nice to see.

“Anthony [Anderson] fouled on a three, Stephane [Lasme] boxed out but not enough. He’s a little thin, the big kid kind of muscled him a little bit and then Chris Chadwick didn’t see the ball and his man when they threw it kind of over his head when West made that shot. So it was really three fundamental mistakes there in two seconds.

Four Hawks registered double figures as Delonte West led all scorers with 23, pre-season All American Jameer Nelson registered 19, Pat Carroll added 14 and Tyrone Barley chipped in with 12.

Next to their shooting Anderson attributes the Hawks win, and their streak to defense.

“It’s their defense, the way they can just turn it on,” he said. “We were kind of close all game, they just felt when they wanted to turn it on they turned it on.”

Junior transfer Chris Chadwick had 15 points last night in 24 minutes as his solid play has earned him more court time.

“Lately he’s been much better,” Lappas said of Chadwick. “I know it gets down played a little bit but he’s new…he’s just getting a feel for how we want him to play. He’s very good with the ball and he’s got to learn how to play without it and I think that’s what he’s done. He’s done a better job of knowing when to go and when not to go.

Sophomore Rashaun Freeman led the Minutemen with 21 points, regaining both his confidence and energy after shooting just 8-27 in the previous four games.

Although Hawks coach Phil Martelli wasn’t expecting the best from Freeman last night, he wasn’t surprised by his effort.

“When people sit down and start discussing who the best freshman or first year player is in the A-10 he’s got to be the first person discussed,” he said. “It was interesting because I watched the previous three games and I thought he was getting tired, he seemed to be tiring and tonight he certainly had a burst of energy early on, I guess he had eight of their first 12. He has a real bright future.”

Overall Lappas thought his team fought hard considering the mismatch.

“Obviously they’re a really good team with some really good individual players, and I thought our guys did the best they could with our game plan,” Lappas said. I thought we did a pretty good job defensively, got beat one on one off the dribble a little bit but I thought our guys gave it everything that they had.

“I think we missed a lot of makeable shots,” he said. “I thought we missed a lot of shots we normally have a good chance to make and that would have been a whole different ball game.”

Freshman Maurice Maxwell hit the floor hard with just over three minutes left in the game. He limped off with help after being down a couple minutes. Maxwell was kneed in the thigh and Lappas is unsure of his status for the weekend.