St. John’s Bounces Back, Defeats St. Francis, 63-48

Coming out of the gate, it didn’t look good.

St. John’s had shot 1/9 from the field by the 16-minute mark in the first half, but used an 18-4 run and had 10 total steals to take a lead they would never relinquish, beating St. Francis 63-48 at Carnesecca Arena on Tuesday night.

Head coach Steve Lavin was not in attendance, still on a modified schedule while he fully recovers from prostate cancer surgery. Luckily for Lavin, he has a wealth of experienced coaches on his bench.

“We notice a difference when he’s not here. He’s very, very good at what he does so we miss him and notice the change,” assistant coach Mike Dunlap stressed, “but we – as a coaching staff – got him. All of us, from Coach Gene Keady to myself, are over 1,000 games in our coaching careers.”

The Red Storm were led by freshman guard D’Angelo Harrison, who proved to be the spark the offense needed coming off the bench. Harrison came of the bench firing a career-high 21 points, including 4/5 from long distance.

“My teammates just found me. I was making my cuts, they were setting picks for me and I was just knocking down open shots.” Harrison said confidently. “It wasn’t me doing anything fancy; I was just knocking down wide open shots.”

St. Francis, who ran Seton Hall to the wire a few weeks ago, had a difficult time keeping St. John’s down after the first few minutes, shooting 36% from the field, while allowing the Red Storm to shoot 52%.

JohnnyJungle.com takes a look at some lasting impressions from the Red Storm’s bounce-back win.

LASTING IMPRESSIONS

Harrison’s Got His Swagger– D’Angelo Harrison came off the bench for the first time this season, assuming the role that fellow freshman Phil Greene had occupied, thus far this season. The formula worked. Harrison came out of the gate on fire, chalking up nine quick points on 3/3 shooting from three-point range, on the way to his 21. Harrison was the most efficient tonight as he had been all season, shooting 6/10 from the floor.

The Zone Worked– Mike Dunlap’s zone has two major functions: create turnovers and force the opponent to shoot from three-point range. It did both tonight. The Terriers shot 5/23 (22%) from distance tonight and turned the ball over 15 times. St. John’s was sloppy with the basketball tonight, turning the ball over 17 times themselves, but the defense showed up.

Pointer Showing His Importance– Sir’Dom Pointer, who has shown how important he is on the defensive end all season, showed his scoring capacity on the offensive end tonight. He tallied 10 points, including a monstrous baseline slam late in the second half, that propelled St. John’s to victory. If Pointer can continue to fill in the gaps on the offensive end, as well as bring that patented defensive pressure, it will spell good things for the Red Storm.
“My teammates just found me tonight. I just ran the floor and they got me the ball. My teammates were the key,” he said.

Student Section Can Be Clever– In a week where the St. John’s Red Zone was highly criticized in a piece by Lenn Robbins in the New York Post, the student section showed the cleverness that the article said they lacked. In the second half, chants of “Rubin’s better!” rained down on Carnesecca Arena, referring to Roger Rubin, Robbins’ counterpart at the New York Daily News. Those were followed by “Where is Len-ny?” who was not covering the game on Tuesday night. Keep up the creativity, stay away from the negativity, and all will be well.