NEW YORK — Justin Brownlee scored 15 points, including the game-changing basket with 10 seconds to play, and St. John’s won its fifth straight, 61-58 over No. 13 Georgetown on Monday night at Madison Square Garden.
Dwight Hardy had 20 points to lead the Red Storm (10-3, 3-0), who are off to their best Big East start since 1999-2000 when they opened 4-0. They came into this game off two conference road wins and came up with another solid effort, especially on the defensive end.
Hollis Thompson had 16 points for the Hoyas (12-3, 1-2), who had won four of their last five and came into this game as the Big East’s best 3-point shooting team but were just 4 of 17, including missing seven of eight in the second half.
Jason Clark, who scored five of his seven points in the final 55 seconds, gave the Hoyas a 58-57 lead with 23 seconds to play. The Red Storm, as they had been doing all game, spread the court, this time with Hardy holding the ball near midcourt. He started to the basket with 13 seconds left and was too strong with a drive but Brownlee, who finished with seven rebounds, scored on the putback to make it 59-58 with 10 seconds left.
After Austin Freeman’s short jumper was partially blocked and the rebound was caught out of bounds by Clark, St. John’s inbounded the ball to Hardy, who made two free throws with 2.8 seconds left. A final heave from just past midcourt by Wright was way off and the Red Storm had a win over the Hoyas, who had won three of the last four games played here.
The Hoyas came into the game shooting 40.3 percent from 3-point range. The three starting guards for Georgetown — Wright, Clark and Freeman — finished a combined 9 of 25 from the field — 2 of 13 on 3s — and had a total of 20 points, 26.1 below their combined averages coming in.
It was Georgetown’s second-lowest point total of the season. The Hoyas had 55 points in losing the Big East opener last week to Notre Dame.