Storm feeling blue
Johnnies let road upset of Creighton slip away with some tough calls at end
OMAHA, Neb. — Again, it was a defensive rebound St. John’s couldn’t get to. Just like at Connecticut three weeks ago.
Fewer than 20 seconds left, the ball on the floor. Creighton got to it and St. John’s didn’t.
Trey Alexander hit two gamewinning free throws with 12.3 seconds left and Daniss Jenkins missed on the other end, sending the Johnnies to a heartbreaking, 66-65 defeat at the CHI Health Center and snapping their fourgame winning streak.
At the final horn, the St. John’s players stood around the court motionless, stunned at the empty finish against the 22nd-ranked team in the country.
“It was an extremely disappointing loss for us. We played good enough to win,” coach Rick Pitino said. “But on the road, you have to get loose balls, you have to get rebounds. The team’s very down about it. We had a chance to win it.”
There were two non-calls that didn’t go St. John’s way. Before Alexander was fouled, Bluejays center Ryan Kalkbrenner appeared to take out Jenkins’ legs diving for a loose ball, and Creighton was able to secure the carom. Johnnies guard Jordan Dingle was undercut on his putback attempt by Francisco Farabello after Jenkins’ miss. Pitino opted not to play that game, even though Creighton held an 18-4 edge in free-throw attempts after halftime.
“Referees have to do their job, they’ve got to call it as they see it,” he said. “We haven’t had the best whistle this year, but sometimes when you’re building and you don’t have a rep, I think those three officials [James Breeding, Nathan Farrell and Brent Hampton] are very good.
“As someone who has refereed basketball camps all my life, it’s not the easiest job in the world. I’m not going to blame it on them. We’ve got to be tough enough to come down with [the ball], and we’ve got to be tough enough to make a mid-range jumper in the lane.” Dingle echoed his coach. Sure, there was contact on his shot that could’ve made St. John’s a winner, but that one call didn’t lose the game.
“I can’t go back and change the call. The ref decided that it wasn’t a foul for whatever reason,” he said. “It was a shot I could’ve made and I think I should have in all honesty. But I did get hit.” The Johnnies (12-5, 4-2) had their chances down the stretch but missed their final four shots and seven of their last eight. They managed just two points, a Joel Soriano basket, over the final 4:24. The big shot just wouldn’t go down, so St. John’s fell out of first place in the Big East, starting this brutal ninegame stretch when it will face seven Quad 1 opponents with a frustrating defeat.
Soriano led St. John’s with 13 points and 11 rebounds, and Jenkins added 11 points and five assists, though the two shot a combined 10 of 28 from the field. Kalkbrenner had 18 points, nine rebounds and four blocks for Creighton.
The game was there to be won after a fantastic stretch by the bench gave St. John’s a nine-point lead with 9:29 remaining. The second unit engineered a 14-2 spurt, highlighted by four points from Zuby Ejiofor, Soriano’s backup.
But the Johnnies couldn’t hold it. Creighton (13-4, 4-2) responded by reeling off a 12-2 spurt and made one more play in crunch time. It ruined a stout defensive effort from Pitino’s team, which held the explosive Bluejays to 14 points below their season average and limited them to 36.7 percent shooting from the field. But that was of no solace to Pitino or his players. This loss will sting.
“When we lose, I f---ing hate the world,” Pitino said. “I don’t believe in those valiant efforts on the road. I feel like I want to kill myself, jump into the cold and die of frostbite.”
As he left the interview room, he added: “I’ve got to go roll in the snow right now.”