All season, St. John’s had been on the improper facet of video games like this one.
In all 5 of their losses, the Crimson Storm blew a second-half lead. In three of these defeats, St. John’s led by double-digits at one level.
However on Tuesday evening at Madison Sq. Backyard, the Johnnies have been the comeback youngsters.
St. John’s rallied again from a 15-point second-half deficit to defeat Seton Corridor, 65-60, and lengthen its season-long profitable streak to 5 video games.
The decisive surge was a 20-6 run, throughout which St. John’s (14-5; 7-1 vs. Large East) pulled forward for good on a Dillon Mitchell lay-up with lower than 5 minutes remaining.
“Without question, this is my favorite game of the season,” mentioned Rick Pitino, who picked up the 899th win of his head-coaching profession, tying him with Bob Knight for fourth all time.
“We’ve played better, but this is my favorite game of the season.”
After a hyper-physical first half by which Seton Corridor led for greater than 18 minutes, the pesky Pirates (14-5; 4-4 vs. Large East) opened the second half on a 9-0 run to take a 47-32 benefit with 16:03 to go.
However the sport turned from there on the power of a tenacious St. John’s protection.
The Crimson Storm held Seton Corridor and not using a area objective between the 16:03 and 11:00 marks of the second half and restricted the Pirates to 7-of-25 capturing (28.0%) after halftime.
St. John’s corralled 13 offensive rebounds within the second half, throughout which it out-rebounded the Pirates, 27-19, total.
And whereas St. John’s shot simply 30.3% after halftime, it held Seton Corridor to solely 10 factors within the sport’s last 11 minutes.
“They started imposing their will,” Seton Corridor head coach Shaheen Holloway mentioned.
It was a far cry from a primary half by which the Pirates out-rebounded the Johnnies, 22-14.
Regardless of a definite dimension drawback, the Pirates got here down with 12 offensive rebounds earlier than halftime, resulting in 10 second-chance factors.
“When you’re down 15 to a team like Seton Hall and you’re getting your backs kicked on the offensive glass and you’re in foul trouble, and you come back from 15 down and wind up with 20 offensive rebounds, you really wanted to win this game,” Pitino mentioned.
4 of the Crimson Storm’s offensive rebounds got here on a single possession.
With 6:29 left within the second half, Mitchell made his first free throw however missed the second. From there, Mitchell, Ruben Prey, Joson Sanon and Dylan Darling every prolonged the possession earlier than Sanon sank a jumper, chopping the deficit to 53-52.
Two possessions later, Mitchell’s go-ahead lay-up put the Crimson Storm up, 55-54, with 4:53 remaining.
St. John’s by no means trailed once more, clinching its largest come-from-behind win of the season.
“It’s just playing as hard as you can,” mentioned Mitchell, who completed with a game-high 17 factors and 11 rebounds.
“That’s really the main thing. It was nothing special that we did. It was nothing that we drew up. It was just playing hard and getting stops on defense.”
A lot of the comeback got here with out star ahead Zuby Ejiofor, who repeatedly went to the bench on account of foul bother. That restricted Ejiofor to 26 minutes and solely 9 factors with 4 rebounds — effectively beneath his season averages.
“I think we discovered that there’s no quit in us,” mentioned Bryce Hopkins, who had 13 factors and eight rebounds.
After the Large East coaches picked it to complete final within the convention, Seton Corridor has been amongst faculty basketball’s largest surprises.
Buoyed by a tireless protection — and regardless of having the Large East’s lowest-scoring offense — Seton Corridor began the season 14-2 and earned the No. 25 spot in final week’s AP ballot.
Final week’s back-to-back residence losses dropped the Pirates out of the rankings, nevertheless, and so they have now dropped three video games in a row.
Nonetheless, Tuesday’s victory served as one other assertion for St. John’s, which stays undefeated since a wake-up-call loss to lowly Windfall on Jan. 3.
“In the second half, we just had to stay together,” Mitchell mentioned. “We got a little frustrated, but we stayed together. We locked in on what we had to do. We just went out there and played our hearts out.”
