The preference, always, is the breather, the laugher, the blowout, the clear-the-bench-and-let-the-walk-ons-chuck-it-up special. The preference, always, is to close a team out, slam its kneecaps, break its will, send its spirit back to the state lines before the buses can get there.
But this will do, too.
“At this point of the year,” St. John’s coach Steve Lavin said, “you don’t grade victories in the Big East. You’re grateful, you chalk it up as a W, you move on.”
The Johnnies didn’t play their way into the NCAA Tournament with last night’s grinding 71-65 win over Connecticut, the last time these two teams will play as conference rivals (at least in this conference). But they sure could have played their way out if they would have lost.
There is still plenty of hard work and hard road ahead, an intimidating swing through Syracuse and Louisville in the week to come, plenty of other banana peels lying ahead in the regular season’s final seven games. And there’s a crowded pile of teams in the league — 10 in all — with between five and seven league wins.
So, no: You don’t qualify and you don’t quantify wins, you simply total them up as they come. It doesn’t matter that one minute you looked up at the scoreboard and saw St. John’s with a 15-point lead, saw UConn shooting 23 percent, saw a blowout brewing … and in an eyeblink the lead was gone and so was the positive vibe that pulsed through the Garden so much of the night.
“I’m sure the fans didn’t like it,” St. John’s forward Jakarr Sampson said.
The fans, all 8,441 of them, weren’t inclined to be picky. Yes, the preference is a rout. But think of all the Johnnies accomplished winning the way they actually won. Look at how they shook off the 20-5 spurt UConn put together to get back in the game, and the 11-4 run they rattled off to cinch it after it was tied for the last time at 51-51.
Look at Sampson and Chris Obekpa, both of them playing a huge stretch of the second half with four fouls apiece, Lavin trusting them both to avoid getting No. 5, Sampson actually holding out for almost nine full minutes. And look at how they stepped up to the foul line with the game in the balance, making 16 out of 18.
No, they didn’t qualify for the Tournament last night. But they showed a toughness and a resolve that will serve them well if they get there, and will serve them even better across the next few weeks, as they make their move in that direction.
“Can you play without fouling out?” Lavin asked Sampson — who scored a team-high 18 points — after he picked up his fourth.
Sampson nodded. What do you say there? No?
“I had to play smart and still play with energy,” Sampson said.
In so many ways that has been a mantra for this team across the past seven games, six of them wins. Twenty-six days ago Georgetown walked into the Garden and laid a brutal hurting on the Red Storm, leaving them bloodied and, worse, 1-3.
That seems like a lot longer than 26 days ago all of a sudden. Have the Johnnies benefitted from a soft stretch of schedule? Some. But UConn doesn’t count. UConn came in having won back-to-back games in OT, and for UConn every game in the season’s final month feels like a postseason game because there will be no postseason for the Huskies.
“They’re so resilient,” St. John’s guard Phil Greene said.
But so is St. John’s. As UConn kept crawling back into the game, as the crowd started to stir and sweat, as it felt like the Huskies were going to roar past them in the passing lane, the Johnnies said: No. They made their free throws, tightened their defense, made their shots, won the game.
Lots of hard road ahead, and it helps when you have got a stomach of steel. We don’t yet know if the Johnnies are good enough to make it to March. But they’re damn sure tough enough.