After sitting half of year, Rivera back to balling

Whether it was rocking the gym at local high school powerhouse Neumann-Goretti, or playing Division I at Saint Joseph's, Hawks sophomore D.J. Rivera has been playing basketball for quite some time.

But for the first semester of this school year, he had to do something he'd never done before - he had to leave the court.

St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli announced at the beginning of the season that Rivera - the 6-foot-2 guard who filled the sixth-man role as a freshman - would take the semester off from competition to concentrate on his problematic academic standing. And for a semester, that is exactly what he did. Rivera practiced with the team when his tutors deemed it acceptable, but did not suit up for any games.

When he sheds his warm-ups for the first time in the Palestra tomorrow night, he will be entering his second contest of the season. For Rivera, that time couldn't come soon enough.

"I love the game," he said. "I stuck it out, it wasn't so bad. It was as long 13 games is gonna be, but I'm just glad to be back."

For a Hawks team that has bitten the injury bug hard as of late, Rivera's return couldn't have come at a more opportune time. Starting point guard and Atlantic-10 assists leader Tasheed Carr did not make the trip Wednesday to take on Charlotte because of a sprained right ankle.

In that game, Rivera's season debut, the sophomore came off the bench to log 20 minutes and score six points on 3-of-7 shooting. Numbers like those won't have opponents trembling in fear, and St. Joe's did fall to the 49ers for their first A-10 loss of the season.

But Martelli is cautiously optimistic that Rivera's contributions can become more substantial.

"I think anytime that you're on a team, and your team does not win, then there is no light that you would shine on something and say, 'oh, well that really worked out,' he said of Rivera's first time in uniform.

"There are things that he will and can do better, plays that he should have made last night that we think he will make. But he didn't not make them because of rust," he said.

For his part, Rivera is taking his reintroduction to game competition on a step-by-step basis.

"It's a new year; I'm a different player," he said. "I didn't want to feel as though I needed to do too much or too little, I just wanted to do what my team needed me to do."

Still, Martelli cautions against expecting too much out of the young Rivera, either now or down the line.

"This is not something that we as a team or a coaching staff sat around and were wringing our hands, saying, 'woe is us!'" Martelli said. "There will never be a day with this team where he would be the savior of the team."

But the work that Rivera put in over the last semester in order to improve his academic situation should not be lost in the attention paid to his eventual return to the court. The sophomore has raised his GPA and feels that he is the wiser for having done so.

"School is important," he said. Rivera improved on "a lot of things in academics, like me getting where I want to be; but then again, in basketball, too. Sitting out, sometimes it's different watching from the sideline. I learned a lot of do's and don'ts. It was a good experience for me to sit out the semester, and now I'm back and ready to play."

And while seeing No. 10 on the court tomorrow against the Quakers might be a nice story for Hawks fans, the real story has nothing to do with basketball, Martelli said.

"The challenge that D.J. faced was formidable and he was able to take it day by day and attack it," Martelli said.

"That, to me, bodes well for his future. Forget basketball, it has nothing to do with basketball. But if he can establish that kind of mindset, whether it be in the business world or his personal life, then it was for the best.

"My hope is that nothing was done by him so that he could play a basketball game on January 16. If that was his only reason for taking on the challenges, then I would say that was kind of like an empty challenge."

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