The Garden crowd had come alive, sensing one of those special moments that have been known to happen at the legendary arena, trying to will St. John’s all the way back.
A 20-point deficit was down to three. Posh Alexander was on the sideline in a walking boot. Julian Champagne had been shut down for the game.
The two stars couldn’t help, and for a few moments, it didn’t seem to matter. Villanova had coughed the ball up again, and the Red Storm’s Tareq Coburn was all alone on the left wing. A shot out of Coburn’s hand looked promising. The crowd roared in anticipation.
“I felt like the ball was moving in slow motion,” said St. John’s wing Aaron Wheeler, the best player on the floor Tuesday night. “It looked good from my angle.”
Then, groans. It didn’t fall. Villanova retrieved the carom and iced the game with two Jermaine Samuels free throws with 11.9 seconds left, delivering a 75-69 defeat to the Red Storm. The frantic comeback had fallen short. Four intense minutes couldn’t overcome the inconsistency that had preceded them.
For the better part of 36 minutes, No. 15 Villanova (18-6, 11-3 Big East) had been in control. The Wildcats led by 20 with 4:27 to go. Without Alexander (sprained ankle), and with Champagnie extremely limited by a right hip injury he sustained in the first half, St. John’s didn’t have many answers. Only Wheeler, torching Villanova for a career-high 31 points, including six 3-pointers, was a consistent scoring threat for St. John’s (13-10, 5-7).
The Wildcats’ injured stars, Collin Gillespie and Justin Moore, were able to start on bad ankles, and though neither was at their best (Gillespie went scoreless for the first since his freshman year in 2018), they still made a difference. Gillespie had 10 rebounds, Moore scored 16 points.
Then, with a little more than four minutes remaining, a switch flipped. Led by Wheeler and Stef Smith (12 points), St. John’s ran off a 23-6 run in a little over three minutes. The Red Storm forced eight turnovers in that span, suddenly playing with the energy and fire that was needed.
And when Wheeler connected from deep for his sixth 3-pointer of the game, it was suddenly a three-point deficit. On the other end, Caleb Daniels lost the ball, giving St. John’s the chance to tie.
“It’s just amazing to me what happens at the end of the games,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “You can play that well and the game can go a certain way for that long, then all of a sudden everything changes.”
Well, not everything.
St. John’s still came up short, and fell to 1-8 in Quad 1 games. Five of those losses have been decided by eight points or less. There has been one common denominator: regret over inconsistency, the inability to play well for longer stretches. Such was the tenor of coach Mike Anderson’s postgame press conference.
“I think the energy has got to be there from the start,” he said. “These guys have to play with the same mindset early on. … That’s the fire I’m looking for that you’ve got to have for 40 minutes.”
Only on a few occasions this season has St. John’s had it. Complete games have been few and far between. Instead, games like this have been the norm, frustrating losses full of what-ifs followed by promises that a breakthrough is coming.
“The sense of urgency, you can see it,” Anderson said, referring to the late comeback attempt. “This team is going to be playing some of its best basketball right now.”
It did for the final four minutes Tuesday night. But as has been the case far too often this year, it wasn’t enough.