Was Saturday’s upset win at No. 14 Cincinnati an epiphany or just an aberration?
After what St. John’s hopes was a break-through, the young Red Storm know it can’t afford to look past unranked Rutgers Wednesday night at the Garden (7:00; MSG), a rival that beat it last season and would love to do it again.
“Rutgers is just coming off beating Pitt, so we’ve got to come out with a lot of intensity, because they’re going to be hyped-up because they just beat Pitt. It’s going to be a good game,’’ said SJU sophomore Amir Garrett. “I know every team in the Big East is hard, but the [freshmen] don’t know it yet because they haven’t experienced the Big East yet.
“The teams that are ranked, they take that game a little more seriously. But now I think the new guys are starting to realize every team in the Big East is capable of being ranked in the Top 25.’’
The Red Storm (9-5, 1-1 Big East) learned some hard lessons in last week’s overtime loss at Villanova, and put that knowledge to use in closing out a 53-52 win at Cincinnati. But Rutgers (10-3, 1-1) is coming off a Top 25 win of its own, beating No. 24 Pitt, 67-62.
“Losing to Villanova we knew we should’ve took that one, but that was motivation to win the next one,’’ said sophomore Sir’Dominic Pointer, who — like Garrett — experienced a 61-58 loss at Rutgers last season and admitted he didn’t fully grasp the intensity of this rivalry until he experienced it.
“They’re our rival. We played most of them in high school. It’s a rivalry game, a school rivalry … Last year, I didn’t realize how intense the rivalry actually was until I played in the game, a lot of talking, a lot of pushing back and forth. It’s going to be a tough game.’’
Coach Steve Lavin drove that point home.
“I mentioned to the kids those junctions, those windows present themselves where you can get a signature victory, and often times those can be momentum shifts. But if you don’t sustain it, it’s a letdown the next game,’’ Lavin said. “We were able to break through, and now we’ve got to sustain. In college basketball you’ve got to hold serve at home.
“It’s like college basketball 101. It’s like an introductory course for 10 freshmen and sophomores. Last year I only coached them four games, and so it was so unique, with the cancer. … You can’t really count that. This is our first full year.’’
* Point guard Jamal Branch, who suffered an eye injury in practice Friday, practiced Tuesday. He’s listed as day-to-day and will be a coach’s decision Wednesday night.