St. John’s looked every bit like an NCAA Tournament team, like the team some have picked as a sleeper in the Big East, the team Steve Lavin said he hopes it can be on a consistent basis by February.
They were up on Syracuse, forcing the Orange back on their heels, outplaying the second-ranked team in the country at both ends of the floor.
Freshman point guard Rysheed Jordan was playing up to his lofty potential, D’Angelo Harrison was making shot after shot, Chris Obekpa was blocking or altering shots in the paint, and JaKarr Sampson was finishing above the rim.
Less than five minutes remained Sunday afternoon — five minutes St. John’s wishes it could have back.
For as well as it played for most of the second half, erasing a 12-point deficit they created with a tentative first half and turning it into a two-point lead, St. John’s was unable to finish the task, outscored 10-3 over the final five minutes, the result a disheartening 68-63 loss to Syracuse at the Garden in front of 16,357 rabid and evenly split fans.
“When our team is playing well, this is what I hope we become,” Lavin said, referring to the first 15 minutes of the second half. “Really disappointed with our first half, really encouraged by the second half, but then I didn’t like our finish at all.”
Harrison led St. John’s (6-3) with 21 points, Jordan set a career-high with 13 points and added three assists, and JaKarr Sampson had 12. Syracuse freshman Tyler Ennis, the Canadian product who attended high school at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, and ACC preseason player of the year C.J. Fair each scored 21 points for the Orange (10-0).
St. John’s trailed 39-27 at halftime, looking like “deer in headlights,” said Lavin, who graded the first half with an “F” or a “D-minus.” The Red Storm came out for the second half a different team, a poised, precise and aggressive unit that attacked at each end of the floor after Lavin implored his players to forget about making mistakes and find the aggression they typically play with.
The result was a 15-7 run to start the second half and St. John’s taking to the play to Syracuse, snaring its first lead on Harrison’s bank shot with 8:25 left. With Jordan running the show, living in the lane, and shutting down Ennis at the defensive end, and Harrison finding his shooting touch, the Johnnies were seemingly in good shape. They led 60-58, 5:48 remained and Orlando Sanchez was headed to the line.
“That’s what I’m most proud of,” Lavin said. “I thought to come from 12 down, we didn’t go quietly into the night. We brought the fight in the second half, and had the ball up two, and had this place rocking, in terms of our St. John’s fans.”
Sanchez, however, missed the free throw — the first of four costly misses at the charity stripe the rest of the way — and St. John’s managed just three points over those fateful final five minutes, missing its final 10 shots and committing two turnovers.
“You put all those together, that’s the ingredients for a loss, especially when you’re playing a Syracuse, where the margin of error is razor-thin,” Lavin said.
Syracuse, meanwhile, took advantage of the Johnnies’ cold stretch, as Ennis scored four straight points to give the Orange the lead for good and Fair sank two clutch jumpers to create a working margin. St. John’s made a point of crediting Syracuse for its play down the stretch, while acknowledging it provided lessons that need to be learned, and will be applied in an upcoming practice.
“Coach Lav will break that four minutes down,” Harrison said. “That four minutes will probably take an hour and a half just to get through.”