St. John’s Falls to UConn, 63-60

Sunday, February 13

New York, N.Y. (Madison Square Garden)

12 p.m.

St. John's University

13-11, 5-8BE

No. 24/23 Connecticut

17-7, 8-5BE

UConn

St. John's

2/13/2022 3:19:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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Montez Mathis led Red Storm with 14 points in 20 minutes off the bench

NEW YORK – Leading by seven with just over seven minutes to play, the St. John's men's basketball team could not hold off Connecticut, as the No. 24/23 Huskies rallied for a 63-60 win at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

Following a Stef Smith 3-pointer to cap an 11-0 run and put the Red Storm up seven, 55-48, with 7:46 to go, St. John's went without a point for the next 5:39, allowing UConn (17-7, 8-5 BIG EAST) to rattle off 11 unanswered of its own.

The Johnnies (13-11, 5-8 BIG EAST) narrowed their deficit to one following an Aaron Wheeler 3-pointer with 15 seconds to go, but two R.J. Cole free throws quickly made it a three-point game in favor of Connecticut. The Huskies elected not to foul up three on the final possession, but the Red Storm could not get off a clean look at the game-tying shot.

Montez Mathis scored a team-high 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting for the Red Storm. The senior guard also went 4-for-5 from the charity stripe.

Mathis led four Johnnies in double figures. The top scorer in the BIG EAST, Julian Champagnie tallied his fourth double-double of the year, scoring 13 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Wheeler also finished with 13 points while Dylan Addae-Wusu stuffed the stat sheet with 12 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals.

St. John's played its second consecutive game without the services of Posh Alexander, the team's leader in assists and a top-10 scorer in the league.

The two teams traded blows to start the contest before a 6-0 UConn spurt gave the Huskies their largest lead of the game, 28-23, with 5:13 to go in the first half. The Johnnies used buckets from Addae-Wusu and Wheeler to quickly cut the UConn lead to one, the same deficit with which they would end the period.

St. John's retook the lead, 32-30, on a Champagnie 3-pointer to start the second half before the team's traded advantages five more times over the next five minutes.

The Huskies grabbed their largest lead of the half, 48-44, on a Jordan Hawkins trey with 11:05 to go before the Red Storm scored 11 straight over the next four minutes, giving the Johnnies a seven-point edge with just under eight minutes remaining.

Holding their largest lead of the afternoon, the Johnnies then went without a point for the next five and a half minutes, allowing UConn to rip off 11 straight and move back ahead by four, 59-55, with 2:18 to play.

Mathis finally stopped the bleeding with a layup, making it a two-point game with just over two minutes to go, but missed a free throw to complete the three-point play and bring the Johnnies within one.

Trailing by a pair, St. John's came up with stops on back-to-back UConn possessions, but could not convert on the other end, as a Tyrese Martin bucket bumped the Huskies' lead back to four, 61-57, with 21 seconds to play.

Wheeler drained a right-wing triple to pull the Johnnies back within one, 61-60, with 15 seconds to go, and the Red Storm appeared to come up with another critical stop before Mathis was whistled for a foul on Cole in front of the St. John's bench. The graduate student calmly drained both his free throws before the Red Storm's finally possession came up empty, sealing the 63-60 UConn win.

The Red Storm will return to action on Wednesday, traveling to Cincinnati for a 6:30 p.m. contest with No. 25 Xavier on CBS Sports Network.