Cartwright and Friars Pick Apart St. John's
Jamaica, NY—A game to forget as soon as possible for the St. John’s Red Storm (10-3, 0-1) as they fell to the Ed Cooley-led Providence Friars 94-72 in a three point shooting extravaganza….by the road team.
The Johnnies began the game with a red-hot start from the field, as Shamorie Ponds and Marvin Clark II got the game off and running with an 8-2 Red Storm lead. That didn’t really hold up, as the Friars, responded with a 7-6 run within the beginning minutes of the game prior to the first media timeout.
Battling against each other throughout the majority of the first half, the Red Storm had some fire on their tails as they went ahead by six points again with the score becoming 32-26. The Johnnies were on an 8-0 run near the five minute mark of the contest.
As the Johnnies were trailing by a lone point heading into the locker room, the Johnnies witnessed a three-point competition that went horribly wrong, as the Friars sank in 16 three-point shots. Six triples came from the finger tips of Cartwright throughout this contest, which did not help the Red Storm in any way, shape or form. Shamorie Ponds was seen limping into the locker room, but no sighting from the head coach in Chris Mullin, as he had no idea till the second half actually began. “I don’t know. I never saw what happened, but I saw him limping. I asked him and he said that he was really hurting after a layup. Otherwise, I don’t know exactly. I noticed him limping at the start of the second half.”
No sleep for the weary, especially for Kyron Cartwright, who came into the game with an injured ankle, sank a pair of triples within 33 seconds putting his squad back up by seven with roughly 15 minutes to play in regulation.
St. John’s cut the lead down to 13 with five minutes to go, but Providence continued to hit shots down the stretch, leaving Queens with a 22 point victory three days before a much anticipated rivalry contest for the Johnnies across the river at Seton Hall.
The Red Storm have only lost to the Friars 19 times in the 51 total contests in New York, dating back to the 1969-1970 season.
The Providence Friars, shot 54.7% from the field, by sinking in 35 shots in 64 total attempts. And as noted above, the 30 attempts, led to a 53.3% percentage from beyond the arc. “Providence had a great day. Tip my hat off to them. They played hard, shot the ball extremely well, and when a team is shooting like that it is tough to stop.” Marvin Clark told the media after the loss.
Big East Honor Roll selection Rodney Bullock, netted 20 points in 27 minutes of play, as he dropped eight of 11 attempted shots from the field, and contributed four assists as well.
Lone bright spot for redshirt Junior Marvin Clark II, was when he set a pair of career highs to lead the Johnnies in the game, by recording 20 points, and eight rebounds.
“We try and go through everybody. One thing we try to do is not be predictable on offense. We have a lot of different options in many of our sets, and of course if someone gets hot, we will play through them.” Chris Mullin after the game.
The Red Storm will battle the Seton Hall Pirates at 5:00pm on New Years Eve in Newark at the Prudential Center. The game can be heard on WSJU St. John’s University Radio with Joey Jarzynka and Bobby Guarente on the call.