#BEtourney Opening Game Brings Rivalry Nostalgia Between St. John's-Georgetown
By SEAN BRENNAN
Special to BIGEAST.com
NEW YORK -- There may be some fire left in the old rivalry yet.
It was win or go home in the BIG EAST Tournament opener between No. 8 St. John’s and No. 9 Georgetown Thursday night, two ancient conference rivals who have a long history between them. Some of it not so pleasant.
So when a hard foul by St. John’s Amar Alibegovic led to a pushing match between players from both teams, which led to a shouting match between Johnnies’ head coach Chris Mullin and Georgetown’s John Thompson III, which led to the coaches being separated, well, it just seemed like a “Turn Back the Clock” night at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
A couple of technical fouls were handed out – one to Mullin, the other to Hoyas assistant coach Patrick Ewing Jr.– and when order was finally restored, the final 8:35 of the game just seemed like old times. The Garden was rocking, “Let’s Go Johnnies” chants were met with “Let’s Go Hoyas” retorts and the game ultimately came down to the final shot. Just as it should.
After St. John’s surrendered all but one point of a six-point lead in the final 3:01, Georgetown had a chance to prolong its’ season and send the young Johnnies home. Down a point with 6.6 seconds to play, the Hoyas had a pair of chances to pull out the win but L.J. Peak’s layup attempt missed it mark, as did Marcus Derrickson’s follow and when the final horn sounded a second later, St. John’s escaped with a heart-stopping 74-73 victory before a raucous crowd of 14,830 at Madison Square Garden.
The Red Storm’s reward for its’ nail-biting win? A date with top-seeded and defending national champion Villanova Thursday at noon in the quarterfinals. But the Johnnies are going to enjoy this win first before turning their attention to the heavily-favored Wildcats, particularly since the victory ended their five-game losing streak in BIG EAST Tournament play with their last tournament win coming on March 9, 2011 when they knocked off Rutgers.
“Big time win for us,” said St. John’s Malik Ellison, who had a stat-stuffer type of game with 11 points, eight rebounds, six assists and three steals. ‘Obviously there has been a huge rivalry over the last 40 years and it was great that we came together as a team and we got the victory.”
After a slow first half which saw the Johnnies (14-18) take a 38-34 lead into the intermission, the intensity seemed to get dialed up in the second half. It looked for a bit like St. John’s was about to pull away when Federico Mussini’s layup off a crisp pass from Ellison put the Red Storm up, 51-43, with 14:42 to play. It was St. John’s largest lead of the game.
But Georgetown(14-18), which came into the game having dropped their previous five games, had no intention of going quietly with a blistering hot L.J. Peak leading the Hoyas charge. Peak scored 22 of his game-high 24 points in the second half and almost singlehandedly carried Georgetown across the finish line. At one point in the second half he scored 13 straight points for the Hoyas, the last points of his personal run drawing Georgetown within, 66-55, with 5:07 to play.
But there seemed little doubt that this affair was going to go down to the wire and when the Johnnies were holding a 74-68 lead with 3:01 to play after a bucket by Darien Williams, it was a pair of Peak free throws in the final 1:47 that kept the Hoyas in striking distance.
But unfortunately for Georgetown, Peak’s last-second attempt at a heroic game-winning shot missed and the Hoyas were done for the season.
Afterwards most of the talk was about the near on-court fracas following Alibegovic’s hard foul on Peak.
“A lot of emotions came up and it was a hard foul,” said Red Storm stellar freshman Shamorie Ponds. “And (Georgetown) just thought it was, like, intentional. Personally I don’t think it was intentional. Everybody got riled up.”
Mullin said he just went on the court to make sure Marcus LoVett was all right after going into the stands on the play and everything just escalated from there.
“I just went out there to see what was going on. I saw Marcus go into the stands,” Mullin said. “I wanted to make sure he was OK. Everything else, just nothing really going on. Close game like that, one team is going to lose, their season is over. I think it was just really competitive juices flowing towards the end of the game there.”
Thompson III had similar feelings on the scrum.
“Kids were playing hard and coaches were coaching hard,” Thompson III said. “I think it was L.J. goes in, takes a hard foul. I think it’s just the heat of battle.”
Mullin and Thompson each shook hands after the game, as did Ewing Jr. and Mullin. The St. John’s coach said he has known Ewing Jr. since he was a kid and Mullin was playing on the Olympic Team with Patrick Ewing Sr. So what did Mullin say to Ewing Jr. after the game?
“(I) asked if he was going to beat me up like his father did,” Mullin said to laughs. “He said, ‘No, I love you.’ So I said OK. He was on the trip with us to Barcelona when he was a little baby. So yeah, just tremendous respect there. There really is. And it was nothing more than competitive juices, nothing more than that.”