St. John’s must not like dessert — because the cupcakes have not gone down smoothly.
For the third straight game, a low-major program came into Carnesecca Arena and put a scare into the Red Storm. This was the closest call yet, a 77-68 overtime victory over 21.5-point underdog NJIT in which the Johnnies coughed up a 16-point cushion late in the second half and failed to convert several opportunities in the final minute to pull out the ugly win over the Highlanders.
Ready or not, up next for St. John’s will be fourth-ranked Kansas at the brand-new UBS Arena at Belmont Park on Friday.
“We’ll be ready to play — we better be,” coach Mike Anderson said.
As was the case in the victories over Fairleigh Dickinson and St. Francis Brooklyn, Anderson’s team avoided disaster. In his best game at St. John’s, Joel Soriano scored five of his season-high 16 points in the extra session and the Red Storm (5-1) held the Highlanders (2-3) to five points on 2-for-7 shooting over the final five minutes.
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But this recent three-game stretch against inferior opponents following the hard-fought, two-point loss at Indiana has created ample concern. Turnovers (18 of them) continue to be an issue. St. John’s lacked intensity for large stretches, settling for far too many jump shots, and is shooting 21.6 percent (13-of-60) from 3-point range over the past three games. Junior star Julian Champagnie needed 17 shots to score 14 points, and has not looked like himself of late.
“I feel like we came out lazy and I would say I feel like it started off when we were warming up,” said point guard Posh Alexander, who returned after missing the previous game with a right calf strain and notched 16 points, seven assists and four steals.
The Red Storm seemed finally ready to pull away midway through the second half. They were up by 16 following a 17-5 run that was fueled by reserve Esahia Nyiwe’s shot-blocking and Alexander’s decision-making. But at that point, Anderson went to his bench, taking out Nyiwe, Alexander and Champagnie, and NJIT went on an 8-0 spurt to make it a game again.
St. John’s only held a five-point lead at the under-four timeout, and soon, the score was tied. NJIT ripped off a 15-2 spurt to get even on Dylan O’Hearn’s layup with 1:45 remaining.
Initially, Anderson said he told the team “I probably screwed that up,” for those substitutions. But later, he stepped back from that statement, calling it a joke.
“Guys were tired, they needed a breather,” he said. “You could see it. I don’t just do it to do it. They had been out there for like nine straight minutes.”
St. John’s had multiple chances in the final minutes to go ahead, and the opportunity at a last shot, but couldn’t convert. The Red Storm failed to score over the final 2:03 of regulation and missed nine of their last 10 shots.
In overtime, they found their game, particularly on the defensive end. Now, it’s on to face Kansas, one of the best teams in the country. After the way St. John’s performed in these past three games, maybe that step up in competition will wake them up.
“What I want to see more,” Alexander said, “is us playing defense for 40 minutes strong.”