By ADAM ZAGORIA
NEW YORK — The St. John’s team that is 0-11 in the Big East is the same team that showed up to play No. 4 Duke on Saturday in “The Garf” game at Madison Square Garden.
Yet this St. John’s team — the one with two losses to Georgetown and one to DePaul — looked completely fired up en route to a 81-77 victory before a sold-out crowd that appeared to be about 70/30 in favor of Duke. The Red Storm improved to 11-13 and remain 0-11 in the Big East.
“To turn it around against one of the storied programs in college basketball, it feels great,” St. John’s coach Chris Mullin said. “But it’s probably more important for our players to get that taste back in their mouth.”
The game was played in honor of the late Howard Garfinkel, the longtime New York basketball scout and founder of the famed Five-Star Basketball Camp.
Asked what Garf would’ve though of the game, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said, “That we stunk, and he would’ve been right. But God bless him, and he’ll always be a part of me.”
DOWN GOES DUKE! #SJUBB pic.twitter.com/SsXOf0Vmsg
— St. John’s BBall (@StJohnsBBall) February 3, 2018
Duke (19-4, 7-3 ACC), a projected No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament by Joe Lunardi, had no answer for sophomore guard Shamorie Ponds, who went for 33 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists, including a huge three-pointer with 40 seconds remaining. Bashir Ahmed added 17 points, 4 boards and 2 assists. And Tariq Owens had 17 points.
“We’re just trying to break the ice and today we did it,” Ponds said. “We’re happy but we can’t stop there. We’ve gotta keep going.”
Marvin Bagley III, a projected top-3 pick in the NBA Draft, posted 19 points and 7 rebounds for Duke, Gary Trent Jr. had 22 points, including 5-of-7 from deep, and Wendell Carter Jr. had 14 points and 15 rebounds.
“Congratulations to Chris and his team,” Krzyzewski said. “They were the better team today.”
St. John’s now trails the all-time series with Duke, 16-7, but the teams have split the last four dating to a 2011 win by a Steve Lavin-coached Red Storm club.
“It’s excitement,” Owens said. “The month of January was rough for us, really rough. But we stayed in the gym and it paid off for us. We’ve been there so many times, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve lost by five points. But we kept fighting, we kept going through it.”
He added: “Collectively we hit them in the mouth and we stayed composed.”
St. John’s led by as many as 11 points in the second half after trailing 39-32 at the break.
7:35 to go, #SJUBB leads Duke 66-55. Ponds now with 25 on the afternoon, Ahmed with 17. pic.twitter.com/Wk1o8ThoCc
— St. John’s BBall (@StJohnsBBall) February 3, 2018
Ponds drained a three-pointer from the right wing that put the Red Storm up 77-73 with 40 seconds remaining, but Grayson Allen answered with his own three from the right side to trim it to 77-76 with 33.4 seconds remaining.
“We lost because we didn’t play well for 32 minutes,” Krzyzewski said. “They did well enough to hold on and Ponds hit a huge shot. They responded. We were not able to knock them out after we lost the first 12 rounds of a 15-round fight.”
Owens then made two foul shots to extend the lead to 79-76.
Bagley III made 1-of-2 to trim it to 79-77 with 20.4 ticks left.
With St. John’s up 80-77, Allen missed a three-pointer that would’ve tied it.
Owens made 1-of-2 for the final point.
Coach K said he was highly upset with his team’s performance but couldn’t explain it.
“I do not know why,” he said. “They were a very frustrating group today. That is unacceptable. You have to respond while it’s going on.”
He added: “We got what we deserved….That is not acceptable, so I will do the things that I’ve done for 43 years to make sure we have an acceptable performance by our Duke team.”
FREE THROWS
Injured St. John’s guard Marcus LoVett said he’s not sure if he will return to the program next season. He said he wasn’t sure his future plans.”He’s got to figure out his medical situation,” Mullin said of LoVett. “His medical concerns have to get taken care of and after that everything will fall into place. ..Several top Class of 2019 recruits attended the game, including Bryan Antoine, Scottie Lewis and Kofi Cockburn.
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Photo: St. John’s
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