Maybe all that NCAA Tournament talk went to their heads.
In its exhibition opener Saturday afternoon, St. John’s needed a furious final surge to get by Division II San Francisco State, 82-80, at a half-empty Carnesecca Arena, a stunning spot for a team that fancies itself a Big East contender and NCAA Tournament hopeful.
“I don’t think we were cocky. We were just a little ahead of ourselves,” forward Sir’Dominic Pointer said after the Red Storm overcame a late eight-point deficit. “We didn’t come ready to play.”
D’Angelo Harrison’s pull-up jumper with 16.7 seconds left off a cross-court feed from freshman Rysheed Jordan made sure the Red Storm didn’t suffer the shocking upset. San Francisco State’s Nefi Perdomo missed a jumper on the other end and Harrison hit one of two free throws with 4.8 seconds left for the final margin. Will Overton Jr.’s game-winning 3-point attempt at the buzzer came up short, and with it a large sign of relief was let out by the small crowd.
“I gave them credit for having the resourcefulness to find a way to win on a [day] where things weren’t going right for us, and that’s an important trait,” St. John’s coach Steve Lavin said.
Harrison scored a game-high 29 points, Jordan added 16 points, four rebounds, four steals and three assists, Pointer had 11 and Orlando Sanchez added nine points and 10 rebounds.
St. John’s has less than a week left before the games count for real, but if the exhibition is any indication, Lavin’s team needs a lot more than six days to get ready for No. 20 Wisconsin.
The Red Storm had their hands full with the patient, sharp-shooting Gators and Perdomo, their star guard. Coming off a medical red-shirt season, the 6-foot-1 Perdomo was the best player on the floor for large stretches of the contest, scoring 23 points on 14 shot attempts, as San Francisco State made the absence of suspended center Chris Obekpa — who was banned for the Red Storm Tip-Off and two exhibition games for breaking a school rule — seem significant, far more significant than St. John’s could’ve imagined.
San Francisco State was able to do whatever it wanted on offense, shooting 51.6 percent from the field and outscoring St. John’s, 34-30, in the paint.
“We can take a page out of their playbook,” said Lavin, unhappy with his team’s offensive execution and 19 3-point attempts.
Lavin preached patience afterward, pointing to the new additions — Sanchez, Jordan, sharpshooter Max Hooper, a Harvard transfer, and forward God’sgift Achiuwa, who red-shirted last year — re-integrating Harrison into the lineup after his suspension last year and Sanchez (shoulder) and junior guard Phil Greene IV (hip) getting over offseason surgeries. He’s talked about hoping his team can be at its best by February, a refrain he again repeated after the narrow victory.
“Between now and February, we got our work cut out for us, and they know that,” Lavin said. “We got a lot of moving parts, we got a lot of question marks in terms of will we gel come March. If we do, I think we can be really special. If we don’t, then we’ll be in the NIT.”