Rapid Recap: St. John's rocks UConn at MSG
NEW YORK – The UConn Huskies lost their second game to St. John’s this season, falling 89-75 in Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon. After a close start, Rick Pitino’s squad built up a double-digit lead towards the end of the first half and never looked back.
The Huskies jumped out to an early lead, getting on the board as Hassan Diarra stole the ball on the perimeter and found Liam McNeeley streaking up-court for an easy lay-in. Then Samson Johnson had two nice finishes in the low post to get them off to a 6-0 start.
St. John’s hit two threes to help make it 11-8 at the U-16. Diarra got his second foul early in the first half, leading Dan Hurley to send freshman Ahmad Nowell into the game for some key minutes as the Johnnies stormed back.
It stayed tight through the halfway mark of the first half, as Tarris Reed Jr. got going for the Huskies. He notched a three-point play and found opportunistic buckets down low to keep the game close even though turnovers were piling up. He had nine points at the half and finished with 15 points after fouling out.
The Red Storm pulled ahead, 27-22 at the U-8 and the run continued, especially after Reed Jr. got his second foul with around five minutes left. UConn’s mistakes continued to pile up as an 8-0 run made it a double-digit lead. After a flagrant-1 foul call on Samson Johnson, the score was 43-26 with four minutes left, and it was 48-32 at halftime.
Despite a bad start to the second half, leading Hurley to call a quick time-out, UConn closed the lead to within single digits a couple of times, but never seriously threatened the home team’s sizeable lead. St. John’s was frustrating the Husky attack, which turned it over 18 times in the game.
UConn falls to 18-9 overall and 10-6 in the Big East, where they are one game behind Marquette and Creighton, who are tied for second, in the league standings.
Next up, the Huskies are hosting Georgetown for the return meeting after UConn won 68-60 in Washington DC on January 11th. The Hoyas are 4-7 since that meeting, with a game against Creighton to come on Sunday, and are ranked 82nd in KenPom (161, 35), which projects a 75-66 Connecticut victory.
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