DENVER — When you have worked as hard as this St. John’s team has to restore the pride, regain the glory and lay the foundation, the ending is brutal.
Especially when it comes too sudden and is too sad.
There was not a dry eye in the St. John’s locker room in the Pepsi Center after a crushing 86-71 loss to Gonzaga last night in a NCAA Tournament Southeast Region second-round game.
PHOTOS: GONZAGA BEATS ST. JOHN’S, 86-71
“We won’t get another chance, the seniors won’t get another chance to play in this atmosphere again,” senior Dwight Hardy of The Bronx said. “I mean, we’re crying right now. But on the other side, we can always look back and say that we had a chance to do something special our senior year, and we made it to the NCAA Tournament.”
Malik Boothe, the undersized senior point guard from Queens who epitomized the underdog resolve of this team, was so distraught after the game that coach Steve Lavin had to wrap his arm around him and walk him to the locker room.
Gonzaga (25-9), the No. 11 seed in the region, won its l0th straight by outrebounding the Red Storm, 43-20 and hitting 9-of-l5 3-pointers.
“What I said to the kids right after the game was, while losing is heartbreaking, losing in the NCAA Tournament is heartbreaking, that when they get out a month, two, three months, you know, a year, five years from now, they’re going to look back and realize that they brought St. John’s basketball back,” Lavin said.
He’s correct.
For the eight seniors who came to St. John’s four years ago with the vow of restoring the program to prominence, and the two junior college transfers — Dwight Hardy and Justin Brownlee — who were the final pieces, they always will have the memory of this valiant final season.
They beat Duke, Marquette, Pittsburgh, Villanova and West Virginia for the first time in their careers. They got the Red Storm back into the national rankings and back into the tournament for the first time since 2002.
But the first NCAA Tournament win since 2000 will have to wait. This team of destiny was hoping Denver, where the 1985 St. John’s team won the West Region on its way to the Final Four, would bring some March magic.
Instead it brought a Gonzaga gorilla, making its l3th straight NCAA Tournament appearance. The Zags will face third-seeded BYU tomorrow for the right to go to the Sweet l6.
St. John’s, the No. 6 seed, finishes its season 21-12. Hardy had a game-high 26 points but was held scoreless for the first twelve and one-half minutes.
Gonzaga got a career-high 25 from junior Marquise Carter to lead three Zags in double figures.
Without senior D.J. Kennedy, the heart and soul of this four-year mission, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the Big East Tournament, the Johnnies simply did not have enough on either end to compete.
The Zags went on a 10-0 run to take a 24-l4 lead with 12:43 left. The lead swelled to 38-23 with just under three minutes to go.
The Johnnies cut it to 43-35 early in the second half but Gonzaga just rained some more 3-pointers.
“I think people know we’re a good program, so I would think that it probably doesn’t surprise them so much anymore,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said of the outcome. “We certainly didn’t consider ourselves an underdog in this game.”
Neither did these seniors. They saw themselves as a team of destiny and they were. They brought St. John’s back. In time they will realize all they lost last night was one game.
lenn.robbins@nypost.com