Health & Fitness
St. John’s Stuns Notre Dame, Wins Third Straight
St. John's shocks #18 Notre Dame with 61-58 win.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish stormed into Madison Square Garden with a ton of confidence riding a nine-game win streak.
The St. John’s Red Storm, winners of two straight coming into this game, were determined to cool down the Irish. Solid three-point shooting defense helped them accomplish their goal as they stunned #18 Notre Dame by a score of 61-58.
The Red Storm (13-16, 6-10 Big East) are in dead last in three-point shooting in the Big East. They finally got to see what it was like for another team to struggle from behind the arc like they have all season. They held Notre Dame to 12.9 percent (4-31) from three, their worst game of the season from downtown.
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"The stat sheet shows they weren't able to make their normal number of 3s and that was the difference," St. John's assistant coach Mike Dunlap said. "We were able to play at a pace slower than we'd like. We handled that and disrupted what they wanted to do."
St. John’s was led by Moe Harkless’ 22 points and nine rebounds. D’Angelo Harrison added 15 points to help his 17.1 ppg average, which is second in the nation in scoring among all freshman.
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A pleasant surprise for the Johnnie’s was Amir Garrett’s contribution of 11 points. Garrett, one of St. John’s five starting freshman, scored the last two points of the game that put the Red Storm up by 3 with only 8.9 seconds remaining.
Scott Martin and Jack Cooley both had 18 points for the Irish (20-9, 12-4 Big East) who saw their nine-game winning come to an end. Notre Dame could have moved into a second-place tie with #10 Marquette in the Big East standings with a win. However, they now sit a game behind them and one game up on #8 Georgetown. The top four teams in the Big East receive a double-bye in the postseason tournament in March.
This game at Madison Square Garden was St. John’s final home game of the season as they finished 4-7 at the Garden. This was a big one for the Red Storm as they picked up their first win of the season in 11 games against a ranked team.
With two very winnable games remaining on their schedule (at Pittsburgh, 2/29, at Rutgers, 3/3), St. John’s could potentially end the regular season on a five-game winning streak, but more importantly, much needed momentum heading into postseason play.
