St. John's Big East woes continue in rout vs. Seton Hall
St. John's Julian Champagnie reacts to a call during the first half of against Seton Hall in Newark, N.J., on Sunday. Credit: AP/Seth Wenig
NEWARK — Two games offered St. John’s some reason for optimism down the stretch of the regular season: a win over Providence and a heartbreaking loss to Xavier in which the Red Storm took a lead into the final two minutes. There was, however, no such hopefulness after Sunday’s contest against Seton Hall.
St. John’s was never really in the game — never even held a lead — as 16th-ranked Seton Hall opened a big lead en route to an 81-65 Big East win before 14,684 at Prudential Center that wasn’t as close as the final score.
St. John’s (14-13, 3-11) fell behind 20-6, still trailed by 14 at halftime and never managed to cut the margin to fewer than seven in the second half. The Pirates (20-7, 12-3) led 77-54 before the Red Storm scored 11 unanswered points against mostly reserves.
St. John’s has lost five of six and the road ahead looks bleak. There are four regular-season games left — two at home and two on the road — and all are against teams that went into this week nationally ranked.
The Red Storm have played fairly well at home (11-6) as compared to the road (1-6), but it’s hard to know where on the horizon the next win lies, especially with senior Mustapha Heron (ankle) likely done for the season. St. John’s plays at No. 12 Villanova on Wednesday.
St. John’s shot 24% from the field in the first half and committed nine turnovers.
“As bad as we played, we couldn’t play [any] worse,” coach Mike Anderson said. “We were fortunate — we were 14 down as bad as we played in the first half. We turned it over, we didn’t shoot well. In the second half, we came out with a little more fight in us and cut it down to single digits and then they just made a big play — that’s what good teams do.
“I can’t knock the effort of our guys; we just went against a better team today.”
LJ Figueroa had 19 points, Julian Champagnie had 14 and Rasheem Dunn had 11 points for the Red Storm, though that trio shot a combined 16-for-45.
Myles Powell scored 18 points and Sandro Mamukelashvili had 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Pirates, who reached the 20-win mark for the fifth straight season. Jared Rhoden, a 6-6 sophomore from Baldwin, added 14 points.
When the teams met at the Garden on Jan. 18, the Red Storm led by 13 at halftime before Seton Hall grabbed the lead for good in the final two minutes and won by three. Mamukelashvili missed that game with a broken wrist, and in this one, the 6-11 junior was pivotal. He helped break the St. John’s press and drove to the rim with relative ease for layups.
“We were prepared to play them, but we weren’t prepared for him to go off like that,” Champagnie said. “We weren’t prepared for him to play as well as he did.”
Late in the game, the Pirates found 7-2 Romero Gill (12 points) for a quartet of spirit-crushing dunks.
A better start might have made a difference, especially because Seton Hall has trailed at halftime 15 times. But as Anderson said, “I thought we came out on our heels.”
He added: “You can’t do that against a team like that.”
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.
