St. John's comes up short in final minute against No. 5 UConn
St. John's Daniss Jenkins (5) keeps the ball away from UConn's Tristen Newton (2) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023, in Hartford. Credit: AP/Michael Dwyer
HARTFORD — So close.
St. John’s nearly caused a stir in the college basketball world on Saturday night in its Big East showdown with defending national champion and No. 5- ranked Connecticut but couldn’t quite pull it off.
Glenn Taylor Jr.’s three-pointer gave the Red Storm a two-point lead with 4:15 to play, but St. John’s scored only two points the rest of the way as the Huskies escaped with a 69-65 victory before a raucous sellout crowd of 15,564 at XL Center.
St. John’s (8-4, 1-1) twice had a chance to tie it in the waning moments. Chris Ledlum got the first chance in a two-point game but missed a pair of free throws with 17.7 seconds left. Daniss Jenkins missed a potential tying three-pointer with eight seconds left.
“We are coming as a basketball team,” Rick Pitino said. “We had this game. We should have won it. But we are growing. It’s a missed opportunity but the best game we’ve played this year.”
Joel Soriano finished with 14 points, 11 rebounds and three blocked shots despite going to the bench with four fouls and playing with them for the final 7:15. Jenkins had 13 points and four assists but shot 4-for-13. RJ Luis, out with shin splints since Nov. 25, played 18 minutes and had six points, three rebounds and two steals, though Pitino said “he’s nowhere near ready to play but we got him time, which is very important.”
St. John’s missed seven free throws and, with the game being called tighter than Pitino liked, put UConn on the free- throw line 22 times in the second half (the Huskies made 15). All those free throws helped the Huskies come back from a 32-26 halftime deficit and go up by five points twice before the hectic final minutes.
“We should have won that game. We had them,” said former UConn player Nahiem Alleyne, who got warm applause to acknowledge his play last season in the Huskies’ title run. “It’s very frustrating because of how the game was — high intensity and back-and-forth . . . I feel like we could have won that game. Everyone else in that locker room feels we could have won that game. We let it slip.”
“We’re right there — we’ve just got to finish it off,” Soriano said. “If we finished certain plays, I think we would have won this game today.”
UConn was without superlative 7-2 center Donovan Clingan — who is sidelined for three to four weeks with a foot injury suffered in Wednesday’s loss at Seton Hall — but backup Samson Johnson had 16 points. Cam Spencer and Tristen Newton each added 15 points for the Huskies (11-2, 1-1).
On consecutive possessions, Jenkins got an offensive rebound and found Jordan Dingle for a three-pointer and Ledlum kicked a ball out of the low post for a three-pointer by Taylor to give the Red Storm a 63-61 lead with 4:15 to play.
On the ensuing possession, Stephon Castle scored on a putback to tie it. Newton’s layup gave UConn a two-point lead with 2:23 left and Castle finished a fast break for a 67-63 lead with 1:59 remaining.
Soriano’s one-hander in the lane got the margin back to two points and St. John’s kept it there with a defensive stand in a two-shot possession by UConn before Ledlum got fouled with 17.7 seconds left. He missed both. After Newton made one of two free throws, Jenkins missed his three-pointer.
Pitino seemed especially irked by the Castle putback and the offensive rebound that extended the Huskies’ possession before Ledlum’s free-throw attempts when he said, “Not getting on the glass and blocking out, that’s something you can control — you can’t control missed free throws.”
Among the things Pitino liked were holding UConn to 43% shooting, including 5-for-18 on three-pointers, and committing only six turnovers.
“We are coming and it should be a nice Christmas for these guys — they played their hearts out and they lost on the road,” Pitino said. “I think we’re going to be a good basketball team. We’ve just got to be very careful we don’t take too many losses because now we have four.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
