The torches and pitchforks were ready.
After St. John’s had given the appearance sweat could be saved and tension spared, Carnsecca Arena quickly went from crazed to quiet. The Red Storm had squandered a 17-point second-half lead and were clinging to a one-point advantage over Seton Hall with 4.3 seconds remaining.
With a sixth straight Big East loss looming, Sir’Dominic Pointer saved the Storm — and himself — one play after he had turned it over, by knocking the ball away from Fuquan Edwin and preventing the Pirates from attempting a game-winning shot. St. John’s held on for its first conference win of the season, 77-76, on Thursday night.
“I was concerned here because when you’re in the middle of a losing streak, it’s that, ‘Oh boy, here it goes again,’ and that’s where you just got to get over the hump,” St. John’s coach Steve Lavin said. “Given that we were 0-5, we’re not going to get too caught up in grading the victory and instead just be glad that we took a step in the right direction.”
Pointer went from Bill Buckner to Carlton Fisk in a matter of moments, having first set Seton Hall up for a potential game-winner after throwing an inbounds pass the length of the floor out of bounds. Fortunately, the Storm’s Orlando Sanchez touched the ball just before it went out, forcing the Pirates to take it out from their own end line.
“We didn’t have any timeouts and nobody was open, so I was hoping to lob the ball and somebody would grab it, and we either play good ‘D’ or the ball would get hit out, and luckily it got hit out of bounds,” said Pointer. “I had to take a chance.”
Then he took another risk, coming close to making contact while punching the ball away from Edwin.
“Of course I was taking a chance, but Lav[in] gives me the freedom to do that every once in awhile,” Pointer said. “I took the chance and it paid off.”
Lavin laughed while describing the frustration of not knowing what Pointer is thinking sometimes, with Jamal Branch summing it up as, “Dom being Dom.”
It was a game in which St. John’s was just being St. John’s.
The Red Storm (11-8, 1-5) fell into their early customary hole, 13-3, but bounced back to take a 35-29 halftime lead because of Sanchez’s (16 points) aggression and solid full-court pressure which forced Seton Hall into 15 first-half turnovers.
By harnessing the team’s extreme desperation into its best all-around execution in more than a month, St. John’s ran to a 65-48 lead with nine minutes remaining after a 13-0 run, sparked by JaKarr Sampson’s sparkling second half, in which he scored 12 of his 16 points (8-of-11 shooting) and wowed the crowd with two emphatic dunks.
But the Storm couldn’t put it away, as Seton Hall (11-8, 2-4) came back with a 13-2 run over the next 3:45, led by Sterling Gibbs, who had a game-high 20 points.
The deficit kept shrinking, with Sampson admitting the lead slipped because the Storm exhaled. Time was on their side, however, and St. John’s can take a breath. The Big East’s only winless team is winless no more.
“It definitely feels good. My teammates and I are hyped and excited,” Sampson said. “It’s not fun being in last place in the Big East and losing five straight Big East games. That puts you in a dark place. I’m glad we got the monkey off our backs.”