Covering the St. John's University basketball program back to Big East promience. "This year it's time to win."

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Halftime: Pittsburgh 38, St. John's 27

St. John’s underperforming so far against Pittsburgh, in fact the team’s first possession nearly ended in a shot clock violation! Justin Burrell has got to get some touches in the second – Anthony Mason Jr. has poured in 15 already but that is only keeping the Red Storm in the game for the time being. DeJuan Blair for Pitt was quickly established early on, something St. John’s should look to do in the second with Burell. St. John’s did find Blair’s kryptonite however, the two times St. John’s guards double downed on Blair he turned the ball over.

Eugene Lawrence only played about 5 minutes in the 1st; the rest was filled by backup Malik Boothe who played great defense on Pittsburgh’s Ronald Ramon. Ramon scored 7 quick points on Lawrence to start the game but was quickly slowed by Boothe the rest of the way. He currently has 9 points.

Anthony Mason’s 15 points is the only thing keeping St. John’s in the game this far on – the interior defense is lacking to say the least and offensive threat, Larry Wright is forcing the action and has been kept scoreless.

Each time it looked like St. John’s would cut the lead down, Pitt answered emphatically twice – once with a Benjamin three-pointer and the other with a fast break alley oop to Biggs.

The 2nd is starting up, gotta go.

2 comments:

Smizzzz said...

http://zsmart.blogspot.com

piece indicates that Norm needs to bring the old days back

MinorLeagueDugout. said...

Thought you might be interested to know that in a blog on FAUOwlAccess.com Mike Jarvis said that the NCAA should ban ESPN from staging the 24-hour basketball marathon.