CHICAGO — St. John’s may not be able to count on D’Angelo Harrison to shoot the Red Storm to their first Big East victory Tuesday night.
The Johnnies’ leading scorer and one of their most experienced players suffered a minor concussion in Saturday’s 74-67 loss to No. 6 Villanova at the Garden and is a game-time decision, Steve Lavin said on Monday.
Harrison took two shots to the head against the Wildcats, one an elbow from Villanova’s James Bell, the other while drawing a charge against JayVaughn Pinkston, and met with team doctors after the game, Sunday and again on Monday.
Harrison didn’t practice on Monday, though he was cleared by doctors to fly with the team later in the day. He would need to pass a series of tests to get cleared to play in Tuesday’s game at DePaul.
“Obviously, as we always do, we’ll take a very conservative approach on injuries, so there’s no long-term risk or less of a long-term risk,” Lavin said. “We’ll approach it in prudent fashion.”
A 6-foot-4 pure scorer, Harrison is averaging 18.7 points per game — fourth in the Big East — and has reached at least 20 points eight times this season. St. John’s does have experience playing without Harrison, after he was suspended for the final six games of last season by Lavin. Furthermore, freshman point guard Rysheed Jordan and sophomore sharpshooter Max Hooper have impressed lately, and could see their roles expand.
“It would be a big change if he’s not ready to go [Tuesday], ” said sophomore forward JaKarr Sampson, St. John’s second-leading scorer at 11.9 points per game. “The whole team will have to pick up the slack.”
Even with Harrison in the lineup, St. John’s (9-6, 0-3 Big East) has struggled in conference play, losing all three against three of the league’s top programs in Xavier, Georgetown and Villanova.
Lavin and his players were encouraged by Saturday’s defeat, which came on the heels of what they had described as an embarrassing performance against Georgetown. St. John’s held a one-point lead over 15-1 Villanova with 6:15 remaining, before the Wildcats outscored them 19-11 down the stretch. It was St. John’s third loss against an opponent ranked in the top six. The Johnnies also fell to No. 2 Syracuse and No. 4 Wisconsin.
“I could see there being some of a getting-over-the-hump concept,” Hooper said. “I feel like we know what it takes, it comes down to just executing. Once we actually do it and knock off a team in a big-time game where there is a lot at stake, I feel once that happens, it could propel us forward and closer to our goals.”
The schedule does lighten up over the next nine days, starting with Tuesday’s game. Then come three home games in a row, against Providence, Dartmouth and Seton Hall, which offers St. John’s the chance to climb out of the Big East cellar rather soon.
“This team still has a lot of fight,” Sampson said. “We’re a young team. People have seen glimpses of what we can do at the Villanova and Syracuse games, but I feel like we can do so much more.”