Northeastern Shocks St. John’s In 78-64 Upset Win

St. John’s celebrated Thanksgiving by helping those less fortunate. Their first game after the holiday, however, was a different story.

Fueled by hot outside shooting and an aggressive offensive rebounding effort, Northeastern (3-1) got a career-high 29 points from Joel Smith to walk out of Carnesecca Arena with a 78-64 victory over a Red Storm (4-3) team who was once again without the services of head coach Steve Lavin, who continues to recover from offseason prostate cancer surgery.

“We let him get 29,” said assistant coach Mike Dunlap when asked about Smith’s performance. “That’s on us. We gave up 38 points in the paint. That’s something we want to fix.”

The Red Storm did get 17 points and nine rebounds from God’sgift Achiuwa to lead the team, but essentially played from behind throughout the night. After Nurideen Lindsey (16 points) put St. John’s ahead 37-35, Smith drained a three-pointer to give Northeastern a lead they would not relinquish.

As the Red Storm prepare to open the month of December with their first road game of the season against Kentucky, JohnnyJungle.com leaves you with some “Lasting Impressions” from this upset in Queens.

Lasting Impressions
– Joel Smith got more than just the game ball for the Huskies. The junior shooting guard’s 29-point, 10-rebound performance is the second double-double of his career, and highest point output in school history since J.J. Barea, now of the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, went for 29 back in 2004.

– In addition to their plus-9 offensive rebound margin, (21-12) Northeastern played fundamentally sound basketball throughout the night. The Huskies entered their meeting with the Red Storm averaging nearly 19 turnovers per game, but committed just ten miscues while forcing St. John’s to cough up the ball fourteen times.

– Today marked the first time in which neither D’Angelo Harrison nor Moe Harkless (eight points each) scored in double digits. After career-high performances in Tuesday night’s win over St. Francis, Harrison and Harkless shot a combined 5-of-20 from the field and 1-of-9 from three-point range in the losing effort against the Huskies.

– Finally, one of the few bright spots for the Red Storm was Sir’Dominic Pointer. Although he only scored eight points and was hindered by four fouls, Pointer provided another highlight reel-worthy dunk in the second half and made several other key defensive plays while St. John’s was still within reach. Pointer could very well be the difference between the Kentucky game being manageable as opposed to the runaway everyone is expecting it to be.