The oldest Hawk, Jones looks to lead by example

Carl Jones walked onto Saint Joseph's campus in the summer of 2009 as the center-piece to the incoming freshman class for the Hawks. He was fresh off of his Northern Ohio Player of the Year award and was ready to try to pump some life into the deflating men's program. The Cleveland suburbs native played in all 31 games in his freshman season and became instant offensive success for a team that was near the bottom in the nation for scoring, averaging almost ten points a game and hitting double figures in 13 games. He even posted 16 points in his first game against arch rival Nova.

In his sophomore season, Jones became the focal point of the offense, not only leading the team in points per game, but the entire Big 5 as well. He averaged 17 points per game on a team that was very young and talented, but just couldn't put the wins together until later into the year. Jones has become not only the main guy on the court for the Hawks; he is now also the elder statesman for the team off the court. With the recent transfer of Todd O'Brien, and the transfers of the two other players in his class, Jones finds himself as the only junior, and oldest member on the team. Now put into a leadership role by himself, and maybe a bit earlier than he would have expected, Jones says he is ready for the role.

 "I believe it is time for me to be a leader. I have to lead these guys by example, show them right from wrong and how it is done here," he said. "These guys look up to me."

It's going to be no easy task, leading the most exciting Hawks team this campus has seen in five years. The team is picked to finish seventh in the Atlantic-10 this season, an upgrade from their twelfth place finish overall last year. Jones feels that it's not necessarily on him to score every night now, but he says that he can if called upon.

"I feel like I can distribute now, but if scoring is needed I can go back to that always. But I have more weapons this year, I might not have to average what I use to."

Even with all this new talent on the court there is still the process of bringing all these players together. Jones however doesn't seem too worried about possible growing pains on the team: "A few of them were here last year… they went through what we went through so they know what's expected. We really just have to bring up the two freshmen we have. Other than that we're good."

Jones has a few games circled on the calendar this season including the Villanova and Temple games coming to Hagan Arena. He says that he wants to see a rebuttal to the "funeral" the Temple student section had for the Men's team last year.

"Hopefully you all got something ready for them this season."

Even after the rough start last year and the predictions this year from local and national media, Jones says this team is ready to compete for the top of the standings. When asked if this team could win an A-10 crown right now Jones responded, "Definitely." Time will tell what happens to this young Hawks team, as they open their season at Western Kentucky on Nov. 11.