St. John's women lose to UConn, 84-52

The good news for St. John's women's team was that it got to work the Big Room - Madison Square Garden - Wednesday night. The not-so-good news was that they got second billing, and very late.

Even worse: They had to play college basketball's steamroller, UConn, which ultimately meant absorbing a severe 84-52 beating.

UConn - 15-1, 5-0 in the Big East and ranked second in the nation - has been no kinder to No. 22 St. John's (12-5, 1-3) than any other opponent. Though its record 90-game win streak against all-comers was ended by Stanford two weeks ago, UConn extended its unbeaten string against Big East opponents to 55 and won a 27th time against St. John's, dating to early 1993.

Wednesday night, as usual, UConn offered a crisp exhibition of sharpshooting and deft passing, quickly putting the game away with a 21-0 surge that started just five minutes into the game.

Fundamentally spectacular senior Maya Moore, UConn's career scoring leader, was her typical self, with 21 points (9-for-12 from the field), six rebounds, eight assists and three steals. Junior Tiffany Hayes added 21 points and eight rebounds and freshman Samarie Walker scored 15.

For St. John's, junior Da'Shena Stevens was high scorer with 12.

And a pair of North Babylon High grads - UConn freshman Bria Hartley and St. John's sophomore Eugeneia McPherson - contributed eight and two points, respectively.

St. John's led only twice, the last time at 8-6. But what had a far more chilling effect on the proceedings than the overnight snowfall was the disappearing crowd. There had been 14,440 in the stands for the first game of the evening doubleheader, Syracuse's 76-59 shellacking of the St. John's men's team, but roughly 10,000 of them walked out before the women commenced playing.

By the start of the second half, no more than 500 remained.

The late-night setting was a result of the scheduling squeeze in the Big East, which regularly uses well-booked professional-team arenas and gives priority to men's teams, leaving a 9:30 p.m. tip-off as the only window for St. John's women in the Garden.

"I'm a mother of three," St. John's coach Kim Barnes Arico said. "That's my bedtime."

Barnes Arico made it clear that, "For our kids, it doesn't matter if there's anybody at the game. Just to say to the rest of the world that they played in Madison Square Garden is special." Furthermore, as a second "home" court, the Garden has been pretty good to St. John's women. "Except," Barnes Arico said, "against Connecticut."

St. John's only two losses, in eight games at the Garden, have been to UConn, which meanwhile is 4-0 in the building.