WILDCAT STRIKE
SJU battles ’Nova but still falls short
ONCE AGAIN St. John’s looked capable of beating the best teams in the country. But once again, it did not.
The Red Storm went bucket-for-bucket with eighth-ranked Villanova at t he Garden for 33 minutes on Saturday, playing with a sense of urgency that befits a team without a Big East win. Some of the Johnnies’ best basketball so far yielded no dividends. The Wildcats made most of the big plays in the final six and half minutes and came away with a 74-67 victory before 11,707.
Considered perhaps the most-talented squad in the conference, the Johnnies are now 9-6 overall and 0-3 in the Big East. They play a road game at DePaul on Tuesday.
“We’re trying to find or identity. We want to be a tough team, a team that plays with emotion and . . . (in) the Georgetown game we came out with no emotion and no energy at all. That’s not us,” JaKarr Sampson said, referring to last weekend’s blowout loss in Washington. “This game we played with a lot of energy, a lot of emotion, and when you do that you always give yourself a chance to win. You might not win, but you always give yourself a chance to win and compete at a high level.”
The Storm’s emotion was on display early when 6-4 D’Angelo Harrison got up for a blocked shot on ’Nova’s 6-11 Daniel Ochefu and came out of it woofing at him. And it came across in the Johnnies’ shocked looks at the many whistles called against them; the Wildcats (15-1, 4-0) went to the line 16 more times and scored 12 more points at the charity stripe.
St. John’s lost the grip on this game late. It led 56-55 with 7:43 left on a drive by blossoming freshman Rysheed Jordan. Then Villanova reeled off eight unanswered points to take the upper hand.
Darrun Hilliard’s block on Harrison resulted in Ryan Arcidiacono finding Kris Jenkins for a 3-pointer and the lead on the break with 6:17 to play. A Sir’Dominic Pointer turnover led to JayVaughn Pinkston making two free throws. And then Arcidiacono’s steal on Harrison led to a Hilliard three. It was eight points in 69 seconds, and then the veteran ’ Cats methodically salted away the win. St. John’s never got it back to a one-possession game.
“We don’t really have many turnovers, but our turnovers occurred at the wrong time . . . crunch time at the end of the game and we need to clean that up,” Sampson said. “I feel like our trouble comes when we try to slow down — when it’s crunch time — instead of how we’ve been playing the whole game . . . fast and smart.”
SJU coach Steve Lavin said the players felt the pace of the game changed only because they stopped scoring. More importantly, he said, the seasoning Villanova got last year when it reached the NCAA Tournament on the strength of four wins over Top 25 teams made a difference.
“(Villanova) having won a lot of games like that,” Lavin said. “When you play a team that have been to the tournament (a lot) there is an advantage . . . It’s a veteran core group and a program that’s been rolling to the tournament on an annual basis. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Harrison led the Storm with 22 points and came away with a bruised nose after taking a James Bell elbow to the face in the first half. Jordan, the freshman, played a very good game to finish with 12 points, five rebounds and two steals. Sampson had 10 points and nine rebounds.
Pinkston, a Brooklyn product, shook off some Garden jitters to finish with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Josh Hart added 14 points for the Wildcats, who came in averaging 9.1 threepointers and were limited to six. ’Nova shot 54% in its first three conference games but was limited to 35% by the Johnnies.
St. John’s first three Big East games have been tough ones — possibly against three potential tournament teams — and Lavin wants his squad to go Dancing, too. “My goal is just to get our team to play its best basketball come March,” he said. “That goal, the objective hasn't changed.”