In bubble battle, Seton Hall gets past St. John’s in OT
NEWYORK— With its NCAATournament hopes likely on the line, Seton Hall dug in and took a huge step toward sticking around in March.
Jared Rhoden hit six free throws in overtime to finish with 19 points and a career-high 16 rebounds, and the Pirates got past St. John’s 77-69 in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals Thursday to snap an untimely fourgame skid.
Sandro Mamukelashvili had 20 points and 11 rebounds in 44 minutes for the fifth-seeded Pirates (14-12), who desperately needed a win to boost an NCAAresume that seemed pretty solid not so long ago.
“Obviously, weknewthat the tournament was at stake,” Rhoden said. “You can’t think about that tournament. We are trying to win this one first.”
Myles Cale added 16 points and eight boards, and Ike Obiagu blocked seven shots before fouling out as Seton Hall advanced to face Georgetown in the first semifinal Friday night at Madison Square Garden. The eighth-seeded Hoyas upset top seed and No. 14 Villanova 72-71 earlier in the day.
“We feel like this is our second home,” Pirates coach Kevin Willard said.
Big East scoring champ Julian Champagnie led St. John’s with 16 points on 7-of-21 shooting and nine rebounds. Rasheem Dunn scored 15 for the fourth-seeded Red Storm (16-11), who went cold after halftime and shot 33% from the floor overall — including 6 of 25 (24%) from 3-point territory.
St. John’s hasn’t reached the Big East semifinals since winning the 2000 tournament — long drought for one of the league’s charter members.
In a possible NCAA Tournament eliminator, Seton Hall avenged an 81-71 road loss to its Hudson River rivals five days earlier in which the Pirates blew an 18-0 cushion. Now, they probably represent the Big East’s best chance to get a fourth team in the NCAA field along with Villanova, Creighton and UConn.
“They just wanted it more than us,”
Dunn said.
St. John’s tied it at 60 on a 3-pointer by Marcellus Earlington with just under two minutes left in regulation. Dunn’s two free throws put the Red Storm ahead before Cale pulled the Pirates even on a driving layup with 54 seconds remaining.
Champagnie and Mamukelashvili had late looks but couldn’t convert.
Rhoden’s foul shot 30 seconds into overtime put the Pirates ahead to stay. Rhoden added two more free throws, Cale hit a turnaround in the lane to make it 70-64 with 1:45 to play and Seton Hall closed it out from the line.
“I love Jared. How hard he plays is off the charts. Today I saw that Jared who is a dog,” said Mamukelashvili, co-Big East player of the year. “Definitely the player of the match.”
Creighton 87, Butler 56: With coach Greg McDermott back on the bench after a one-game suspension, No. 17
Creighton cruised into the semifinals wit the win over Butler.
The second-seeded Bluejays (19-7) advanced to face Connecticut or DePaul on Friday night at Madison Square Garden. Creighton is in the semifinals for the third time since joining the conference in 2013 and first time since 2017.
Damien Jefferson scored 11 points in the first eight minutes and Marcus Zegarowski led the Bluejays with 18.
Bryce Nze had 21 points to lead No. 10 seed Butler (10-15), which trailed by 33 in the second half after edging seventh-seeded Xavier 70-69 in overtime Wednesday night.
McDermott was suspended for the final game of the regular season for making racially insensitive remarks to his players. The 57-year-old coach created a firestorm for twice using the term “plantation” as part of an analogy urging team unity after a recent loss.