Ponds carries Johnnies

How much trouble could St. John’s face with the absence of leading-scorer Marcus LoVett? Only as much as Shamorie Ponds allows.

With LoVett sitting on the sideline and wearing a walking boot on his sprained right ankle, Ponds put on the biggest performance of his young career and saved the Red Storm from suffer- ing a second straight home upset, scoring a career-high 25 points in a 76-70 win over Cal State Northridge on Monday at Carnesecca Arena.

Without LoVett — who was injured in practice Sunday and considered day-to-day prior to undergoing an x-ray and MRI exam — Ponds saw increased touches and responsibility in 35 minutes, yet was as efficient as ever, finding others, and finding his own shot, with alternating ease. The freshman shot 10-of18 from the field — hitting three 3-pointers — adding five assists, with one turnover.

St. John’s (4-5) has now won two straight games since its fivegame losing streak.

“I just tried to be more aggressive, just be the leader out there, be more vocal and get my teammates involved,” Ponds said. “Even though we didn’t win the way we wanted to and it wasn’t a pretty win, we’ll still take it.”

While Ponds was living up to every ounce of the hype surrounding him out of Brooklyn, the rest of the offense struggled without the other star guard, shooting 38.5 percent from the field. Federico Mussini was electric early, hitting his first four 3-point attempts to propel St. John’s to a 40-36 halftime lead, but the Italian went scoreless in the second half.

After t he Matadors ( 3 - 6) exploited the Johnnies’ interior defense early, scoring 18 of their first 22 points in the paint, Tariq Owens (four blocks, seven rebounds) took away those easy opportunities, sparking an 8-0 run to break a tie midway through the second half.

And despite holding CSUNorthridge without a field goal for more than six minutes down the stretch, St. John’s only led by two when Ponds stepped to the freethrow line with 18.7 seconds left.

“We put a lot on him for a freshman,” coach Chris Mullin said, “but he can handle it.”