Matt Whitfield, St. John's News, Villanova News

VILLANOVA GETS COMFORTABLE, BEATS ST. JOHNS IN MSG

by MATT WHITFIELD

St. John’s started it’s toughest stretch of the season Saturday when they took on No. 4 Villanova Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. With three of their next four games, starting today, against ranked opponents, this surely could be a stretch that defines their season.

Villanova started off the game with an opening 14-5 run, led by Corey Fisher’s six points, in the first 4:34 of the contest.

A Dwight Hardy jumper got the Red Storm rolling as they went on a 22-4 run, with Hardy’s 13 points being the driving force, to turn the tables and take a 29-18 lead with 8:08 left in the first half. Hardy connected on a trio of shots beyond the arc in the run.

The Wildcats answered with a run of their own, 10-1, to close the gap to 30-28, but St. John’s scored six straight to stretch the lead back to eight, 36-28 with 2:42 left off a pair of free throws by Anthony Mason Jr, making his first start of the season in place of Dele Coker as Norm Roberts opted for a smaller line-up.

Scottie Reynolds keyed a 9-2 run in the last 1:45 of the half, scoring six points, to close the gap to 38-37 at the break.

As they’d done before this season Villanova stormed back with a second half comeback.

“We were talking about this as a a staff, no matter what you say about coming back to Madison Square Garden when you have New York kids you worry about them and also everybody else is excited too,” Jay Wright said about his team’s early effort. “We have six first year guys, it doesn’t matter if your from New York or not, they’re excited.”

After a Sean Evans dunk put SJU up 40-37, the Wildcats went to work. A Corey Stokes three tied the score with 18:21 left and the teams traded one and two-point leads until a Maalik Wayns bucket started a Villanova 12-0 run. St. John’s went cold and missed eight straight shots from the floor as the Philadelphia school took a commanding 60-49 lead with just over 10 minutes left.

“I think they got comfortable in the second half and thought they started to play basketball,” Wright said of his troops.

From here St. John’s could never get closer to six points and the Wildcats stretched the margin to as many as 15 points in the game’s final minute before the final horn sounded at Madison Square Garden with Villanova winning 81-71.

Despite the loss Norm Roberts was optimistic about his teams play and outlook.

“Give Villanova a lot of credit,” said Roberts following the game. “They have a terrific team. They made tough shots, made tough plays. We had some opportunities and we just didn’t convert. I thought our energy level was good, I thought we tried hard and I thought we got better and we are going to get better as we come along.”

Villanova is now 18-1 and 7-0 in the Big East, matching their best start in school history dating back to the 1950-51 season.

St. John’s is now 12-7 and 2-5 in the Big East and hits the road this week to take on Pittsburgh this week.

Villanova was led by Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher, scoring 19 and 18 points respectively. As a team, the Wildcats shot 28 of 56 (50%) from the field.

St. John’s was led by Dwight Hardy who had 19 points, including five three-pointers. St. John’s shot 39.3% (24-61) from the field, but just 28.9% after halftime when the Wildcats got comfortable and took control.

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