Recent St. John’s seasons have ended after the Big East tournament. This one won’t, but it felt that way Thursday.
The Red Storm do have the NCAA tournament to look forward to following their 79-73 quarterfinal loss to Syracuse in the Big East tournament, but it likely will be without D.J. Kennedy.
Kennedy — one of nine St. John’s seniors — went down with a right knee injury 5½ minutes into the game. Coach Steve Lavin said he did not the exact nature of the injury, but did say it was serious.
“I haven’t spoken to our team doctors to find out anything definitively on D.J.,” Lavin said. “But I know it’s a serious knee injury.”
They found out how serious tonight when an MRI revealed a torn ACL.
Kennedy went down during a collision in the lane with Syracuse big men Rick Jackson and Fab Melo and immediately called for trainers. Two reserve players helped the forward into the locker room with Kennedy unable to put weight on the knee. Sean Evans — one of Kennedy’s closest friends on the team — was distraught but determined afterward.
“D.J. is a big part of this team, this hurts me because we’re close on and off the court, it’s not many times you see D.J. you don’t see me,” Evans said. “So it’s going to be hurtful but I think it’s going to be fuel to the fire and we’re going to have to step up … I’m going to play as hard for D.J. and for my teammates.”
St. John’s trailed 14-5 when Kennedy went down, but the Red Storm rallied to take a 22-20 lead with Dwight Hardy scoring seven points during the 18-6 spurt. St. John’s would push that lead to 37-32 at the half with Kennedy fill-in Malik Stith scoring five points.
But Syracuse would overpower St. John’s down the stretch with sophomore guard Brandon Triche leading the way with 22 points. Triche’s most important play came on assist to Melo that broke a 68-68 tie with 2 minutes left and put the Orange up for good.
“I was shocked,” Hardy said of Kennedy’s injury. “We lose one of our best players for the moment. Somebody is going to have to fill his shoes and I think Malik did a good job of sparking us, and that’s the thing about this team we’re so deep that at any given moment anybody can step up. But to lose a player like him is crucial, and we’re going to have to find a way to excel.”
Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim did not sound optimistic about St. John’s chances of doing that. A year ago, the Orange lost center Arinze Onuaku to a leg injury in the same round of the Big East tournament in a loss to Georgetown. Syracuse was a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, but lost in the Sweet 16 to Butler.
“Look at Georgetown. I don’t think they’ve won a game since (Chris) Wright went down,” Boeheim said of the Hoyas’ recent injury. “They went from a top-10 team to losing four in a row. You can’t absorb a loss like that especially if you have three key guys … It’s difficult to lose a guy like that, there’s no question.”
Syracuse moves into the semifinals and a matchup with Connecticut, which upset Pittsburgh on a buzzer-beating jumper by Kemba Walker.
St. John’s will wait to see who it will play when the NCAA tournament brackets are announced Sunday.
“It’s going to be devastating but we’ve got to play a basketball game at the end of the day and we’re going to play as hard as we can for him,” Hardy said.