St. John's University Athletics
St. John's University
7-15, 0-9BE
No. 6/6 Villanova
18-3, 8-1BE
| Team | 1 | 2 | F |
|---|---|---|---|
| Villanova | 28 | 40 | 68 |
| St. John's | 27 | 26 | 53 |
No. 6/6 Villanova Outlasts Red Storm
1/31/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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NEW YORK - St. John's trailed by just one at the break, but No. 6/6 Villanova opened the second half on a 22-7 run and defeated the Red Storm, 68-53, on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
Durand Johnson (Baltimore, Md.) led St. John's (7-15, 0-9) with a team-high 13 points, while Ron Mvouika had 11 points and 10 rebounds for his second double-double of the season. Christian Jones (Arlington, Texas) added 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting.
"Villanova is a great team, so you have to give them credit," said Mvouika. "We had a run of empty possessions for eight minutes where we kept giving the ball away. A team like Villanova will make us pay for that."
Josh Hart posted team-highs with 16 points and 11 boards for Villanova (18-3, 8-1). Kris Jenkins also had a double-double for the Wildcats, finishing with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Villanova shot just 36.2 percent (21-of-58) from the floor, but posted a +13 (48-35) margin on the glass.
"I thought our defensive effort was really good, especially in the half court," said St. John's Head Coach Chris Mullin. "We made it tough for them, but we didn't capitalize.
"We had a hard time putting the ball in the basket. The rebounds hurt us a lot and they were a big factor."
Johnson and Federico Mussini (Reggio Emilia, Italy) opened the scoring with 3s as St. John's led 6-0 at the 17:11 mark. The Red Storm defense, meanwhile, held the Wildcats without a field goal until 13:24 when a Jalen Brunson layup gave Villanova its first lead of the game, 7-6. St. John's regained an advantage on Malik Ellison's (Voorhees, N.J.) layup-and-one, but Villanova answered with an 8-0 run.
St. John's, however, responded with an 11-0 rally of its own. After Jones made consecutive layups, another layup from Johnson knotted the score at 15-15. Mvouika then drained a corner 3 to force a Villanova timeout and Johnson made it 21-15 with a layup-and-one at the 5:14 mark.
The back-and-forth continued as the Wildcats used a 12-0 run to retake the lead 27-21. Amar Alibegovic (Rome, Italy) answered with a 3 and Mvouika banked home a long range triple at the buzzer as the Red Storm trailed by just one, 28-27, at the break.
Kris Jenkins and Mvouika traded 3s to open the second half. The Red Storm was still within five after a Felix Balamou (Conakry, Guinea) bucket at the 16:09 mark. Ryan Arcidiacono answered with a 3-pointer and the Wildcats soon led by 16 points, 50-34, after he converted another layup that capped the 22-7 spurt.
Alibegovic scored five-straight points midway through the second half to trim the deficit to 13, but St. John's could not get closer. The sophomore forward finished with eight points and four rebounds.
"Tomorrow we'll look at this game, try to correct some things and move on to Xavier. That approach hasn't varied," said Mullin. "We're looking forward."
St. John's returns to action on Feb. 3 with a 6:30 p.m. road game against No. 7/8 Xavier (FS1).
