By Anthony Bosco
Less than 48 hours after being carried off the court by teammate Donald Emanuel following a heart-stopping effort against No. 9 Syracuse, St. John's point guard Erick Barkley was celebrating his 22nd birthday in grand style, leading the Red Storm over the defending national champion University of Connecticut Huskies.
In front of a packed house at Madison Square Garden, Barkley scored 22 points with four assists and six steals, as St. John's defeated UConn for the second time this season, 79-64. The Red Storm never trailed in this game, the team's sixth consecutive win and the second against a ranked conference foe.
“That was a great present,” Barkley said after the game.
“We just came prepared,” added senior forward Lavor Postell, who also scored 22 points with five rebounds and two assists. “I don't know what it is right now. We're in a rhythm.”
A rhythm the defending NCAA champions just could not keep up with.
St. John's came out hot, as both Bootsy Thornton and Barkley nailed threes to open the game. A Postell driving layup with 18:14 remaining in the first gave St. John's an 8-0 lead and forced Huskies' coach Jim Calhoun to call his first timeout.
Connecticut quickly got back into the game, scoring the next six points and eventually erasing the deficit altogether when a layup by Kevin Freeman tied the game at 15-15 with 12:27 to go in the first half. The tie would be the last in the game and the closest the Huskies would get to taking the lead.
“The kids were magnificent from the first play to the last play,” said St. John's head coach Mike Jarvis. “It was wonderful.”
Wonderful is just one word for the feeling at the post-game press conference. With the specter of a second NCAA probe hanging precariously over the heads of the Red Storm, Jarvis and Co. turned in back-to-back performances that all but locked up a spot for the team in the NCAA Tournament.
Barkley has already missed two games this season courtesy of an NCAA-forced suspension before the ruling was overturned. Barkley is again at the center of this latest controversy, with the NCAA reportedly looking into Riverside Church basketball program founder Ernie Lorch paying part of the point guard's tuition at Maine Central Institute, the prep school Barkley attended after Christ the King and before St. John's.
But another showdown with the NCAA has certainly not affected Barkley or the team on the court, as the Red Storm showed against Connecticut.
After taking a six-point lead into halftime, the game was finally broken open when, with St., John's leading 49-40, Connecticut big man Jake Voskuhl was called for a technical after fouling Donald Emanuel. Emanuel hit 1-of-2 from the line and Barkley sank both free throws on the technical, making the score, 52-40.
Back-to-back baskets by Thornton and Barkley ballooned the St. John's lead to 16, forcing Calhoun to take another timeout.
The break did little to slow down St. John's. The two teams traded baskets, but a steal by Thornton led to a picture-perfect alley-oop dunk from Reggie Jessie to a soaring Lavor Postell with 11:07 to play, making the score 60-42 and forcing another Huskies' timeout.
“If the other night was special, we're going to have to use some other word to describe tonight,” Jarvis said. “How about extra special?”
Down the stretch of the game, St. John's did something it has not been able to do a number of times this season – hold onto a big lead. Every time UConn got close, St. John's countered, continually attacking the basket instead of “putting the ball away,” as Jarvis described it.
The win was the 300th of the Jarvis' career, something not lost on the coach, who was reminded of the fact by his wife Connie before the game.
“It's special,” the coach said. “It's especially special because of who it was against. We could not have written the script any better.”
The team shot 55.3 percent from the field, as the SJU backcourt of Barkley and Thornton outscored the Huskies backcourt of Khalid El-Amin and Albert Mouring, 42-2. Thornton finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and four assists. Emanuel continued to play solidly off the bench, getting 24 minutes of action, as starter Anthony Glover battled foul trouble.
Next up for St. John's, now 19-7 overall and 11-3 in the Big East, are the No. 2-ranked Duke Blue Devils on Saturday, followed by Seton Hall on Tuesday.
St. John's 76, Syracuse 75. Suffering from dehydration down the stretch of the game, Barkley held on to play all 40 minutes of this titanic clash at Madison Square Garden Saturday, as St. John's held off No. 9 Syracuse, despite losing most of what was a 14-point second half lead in the waning minutes.
Barkley finished with 16 points, nine assists and three steals and collapsed at center court as the final horn sounded, as the Red Storm handed the Orangemen only their second loss of the Big East season.
Thornton led all scorers with 22 points and seven rebounds, while Glover added 16 points and Postell scored 14. Jessie added six points, eight rebounds and five assists.
