St. John’s
NCAA tournament hopes received another crippling blow yesterday at the hands of
both a familiar nemesis and a new one.
The familiar nemesis was the Georgetown Hoyas, now coached by the
archest of arch-enemies to St. John’s fans Patrick Ewing. No doubt many in the
crowd of 17,000+ who came to MSG remembered the best days for the Big East and
the two programs, heard the buzz generated by St. John’s now distant 12-0 start
and were both hopeful and curious. What they got was a disappointing 89-78 loss
to their old rivals, Georgetown and Ewing, and found out that the Hoyas had a
new thorn in St. John’s side, freshman point guard Matt McClung.
To their credit,
Georgetown got out of the gate quickly with the combination of McClung and
former Wings Academy center Jesse Govan. They helped the Hoyas maintain the
lead for all but very brief portions of each half and the crowd which was
mostly a St. John’s crowd stayed quiet. What McClung and Govan did to great
efficacy from start to finish was exploit mismatches created by St. John’s
switching against either Govan’s size or McClung’s quick driving ability.
McClung, who was injured for his team’s 97-94 loss to St. John’s on January 5th
had a game high 25 points for the Hoyas while Govan added 20. As a team the
Hoyas shot 13-27 from three-point land in large part because the good work done
by their center/guard combination put St. John’s defense in constant help and
scramble mode and players such as freshman Josh LeBlanc (15 Points) and
sophomore Jamorko Pickett (9 points) made key plays with the help of good ball
movement or by attacking the glass.
Georgetown took a
41-37 advantage into the intermission. And while the Hoyas played well in
garnering that edge, St. John’s wing Mustapha Heron suggested that his team may
have been “going through the motions” in the first 20 minutes. It’s fair to say
that St. John’s lethargy extended into the second half as well since Georgetown
was able to extend that halftime margin. And that lead to a series of coaching
decisions that likely cost St. John’s dearly as they tried to make a final
push.
The series of
coaching decisions came in the form of 3 St. John’s time outs. The first came
as Georgetown pushed their margin to 55-50 with just over 15 minutes left. The
second and third came after the Hoyas had extended their margin to 10 points
and the last came with 8:49 seconds still to be played and left the Johnnies
with no time outs for the balance of the game.
It’s very likely
that at the moment each of those last time outs were, they stopped the
proverbial bleeding. But the early use of those time outs meant the Johnnies
didn’t have them for the final possessions when they were sorely needed.
Beginning with 1:49 left in the
game, two free throws and a layup by Shamorie Ponds brought St. John’s to
within 79-77. A flurry of defensive pressure and turnovers, and one replay
reversal that gave St. John’s the ball with chances to tie the game. But on one
possession Ponds’ without a time out through the ball away. The second, that
came off a deflection and steal by LJ Figueroa resulted in a heartbreaking
sequence for St. John’s that came about again in part because they had no time
outs left. Figueroa began it with a long and quick three-pointer that he took
without setting his feet, once again with no time outs left to set up a play
for a good shot. A flurry of tip tries followed, all missed and, perhaps
fittingly, it was left Mac McClung to get the rebound and take the last breath
of air from a St. John’s comeback try with a drive and dunk.
The loss was St.
John’s 5th in 8 Big East games and their 3rd in 4 tries.
After a three-game road trip that begins Tuesday at Creighton and includes
visits to Duke and Marquette, the Johnnies may now simply not have enough chances
to play themselves back into the NCAA tournament field. A season that began
with such bright promise has seen that promise fade quickly. And with this
loss, they may have seen the tournament bid St. John’s fans want so badly for
their team and their coach, slip from their team’s grasp.
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