D'angelo Harrison's 17 second half points
and JaKar Sampson's first career double-double helped St. John's avoid an upset
loss to a determined N.J.I.T. team 57-49 win at Carnesecca Arena yesterday.
Throughout
the first half coach Jim Engles squad had the game at their pace thanks to a
patient offense and what St. John's coach Steve Lavin might have referred to as
a "quicksand man to man" defense. St. John's often uses a zone to
force the opposition to use the shot clock. The Highlanders followed cutters
through the lane and switched on dribble hand offs but seldom ventured outside
the key to challenge shooters. That strategy worked and N.J.I.T. combined that
with outstanding 3-point marksmanship (6=10) to surge to a 35-23 halftime
advantage. Former St Peter's (SI) High standout Ryan Woods who began his
college career at Division II Pace University connected on 3 of those first
half tri-fectas and finished with a team high 16 points.
Harrison, who finished the game with 21 points was briefly admonished by Lavin for showing up his teammates who weren't catching his passes.
In the second half he did a much better job of leadership scoring 9 points and
playing with better energy to ignite a 19-5 spurt out of the locker room and
give St. John's a 42-40 lead. Meanwhile Sampson snared 17 rebounds to go along
with 15 points and his effort helped St. John's turn a 6 rebound deficit at
halftime into a 6 rebound margin for the game. Chris Obekpa who added 8 points
and 5 blocks scored 4 consecutive points when he and Harrison first faked a
dribble hand off that led to a spin move off the right block and a dunk. On the
very next play he took a feed from Sampson and connected on a short jumper to
move the Red Storm's lead from 1 point to 5, bring a listless crowd to its feet
and effectively salt the game away.
St. John's heads west to face the
University of San Francisco on Tuesday ay 10:pm
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