St. John's Has Bitter End To Bahamas Weekend

 

Kadary Richmond goes up for a jumper. @StJohnsBball.

St. John's suffered another tough loss to end their jaunt to the Bahamas, as they fell to Georgia, 66-63, on Sunday afternoon.

The Red Storm, who are now 5-2 on the season, began their weekend with two games in the Baha Mar Championship, a double-overtime game to Baylor on Thursday before a win over Virginia on Friday night. 

Georgia led this one, which started at 11:00 A.M. (Bahamas is in the same time zone), 32-28 at the half.

The Bulldogs expanded that lead to nine, at 37-28, a couple minutes into the second half before the Red Storm responded with a 7-1 run, capped by a Zuby Ejiofor put-back dunk at 16:00 to get back into it.

Simeon Wilcher drained a pair of free throws with 10:19 remaining to put St. John's ahead, 45-44. 

After RJ Luis Jr. made fast break layup off a turnover to put the Red Storm up three, Georgia responded with a 10-0 run, capped by a Tyrin Lawrence layup at 6:56 that made it 54-47.

St. John's responded with a 7-0 run, capped by another Luis layup off a turnover to tie it at 54 with 5:46 left.

Georgia would reclaim the lead, eventually leading 64-60 until Aaron Scott buried a three with 12 seconds left to pull St. John's within one point.

Lawrence then went to the line with 10.2 seconds left, and drained a pair of free throws to make it a three-point game.

St. John's had to do the ensuing inbounds from their own end, and as they moved up the court, Luis Jr. was stripped just as he hit the three-point line, providing a frustrating ending to this one.

Georgia was led by Asa Newell, who had 18 points on 8-13 shooting, including 1-2 from behind the arc, with five rebounds and two steals. Silas Demary Jr. had 15 points (5-11 FG, 2-3 threes) with four rebounds and two assists, as well as the negative that he committed 10 turnovers. Tylin Lawrence had 11 points (3-6 FG), nine rebounds, five assists, and two steals.

St. John's was led by Zuby Ejiofor, who had 22 points on 5-8 shooting, 0-1 on threes, and a near-perfect 12-13 front he free throw line, with eight rebounds, three steals, plus on the down side, five turnovers. Aaron Scott had 14 points (5-14 FG, 2-11 threes), with five rebounds. RJ Luis Jr. had 13 points (6-13 shooting), four rebounds, and three steals. Kadary Richmond had a tough day, as he had just three points on 1-8 shooting, with four rebounds, two assists, and two steals.

Georgia won this game despite committing 24 turnovers, while St. John's committed 15.

PITINO POSTGAME: St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the game, and he opened with this statement: "We had difficult day offensively. Our shots were not going down. Defensively, we did not play really well. We kept giving them their strong hands, but they deserved the victory. They made plays at the end of the game, and it was disappointing. We played hard, fought to the end, but they were the better team.”

On the shooting struggles this afternoon…

“I think all of Brady’s [Dunlap] shots were forced shots, challenged shots. He's a good shooter. If he takes unchallenged shots, he'll shoot a good percentage, but all his shots were challenged. That's why he missed. I'm not sure about Aaron [Scott] on that, but I know Brady just took challenged shots.”

 

On where his team stands following three games in four days in the Bahamas…

“As long as we play hard, I'm not going to judge where we are now. I'm going to judge where we're at the end. As long as we play hard, fight, try to win games, I think we'll be okay.

We’re certainly not a great team, but we're a pretty good team, and Georgia beat us tonight by just making shots when we didn't make shots in a close game.”