This is who they are. It’s what they do. The St. John’s basketball team are the comeback kids.
It’s been on display all season and it was apparent again on Wednesday night inside Madison Square Garden against Xavier.
After trailing by ten points at halftime, 40-30, and 16 points early in the second half, 50-34, the No. 20 Johnnies had another comeback in its bones with a 79-71 victory in overtime.
"We got outplayed tonight," Rick Pitino said. "They were the better team for most of the game."
It was the third time this the season (Providence and Georgetown) that the Red Storm overcame a 15-point deficit to emerge victories and this was eerily similar to its win over the Hoyas last week.
"We had to have this win," Pitino explained. "It's the most important thing for us, is to keep improving and keep winning. We cannot take losses."
St. John's remains in first place of the Big East and is off to its best start since the 1985-86 team, which went to the Final Four, was 18-2.
"It's a non-negotiable thing for us, and that's the attitude we have, and that's where we come back. I think these guys have a great fear of losing, a great fear, and that's a good thing.”
The run started by a pair of layups from Simeon Wilcher and RJ Luis, was sent into drive by Zuby Ejiofor, and finished by Kadary Richmond.
Richmond gave St. John’s its first lead with 3:41 to play, 61-60, since midway through the first half and a steal and a layup by Luis off the inbounds pass sent the 14,545 in attendance into a frenzy.
Xavier (12-8, 4-5 Big East) would answer with five straight points to take the lead, 65-63, with 2:16 left and had a chance to take a two-possession lead before Jerome Hunter missed the front end of a 1-and-1 that allowed Richmond to tie the game with a layup with 1:03 remaining.
“He made every single right play, especially in the overtime period," Ejiofor said about Richmond, who finished with 19 points, seven rebounds, five assists, and three steals.
St. John’s defense would force a shot clock violation with 32.2 seconds left but failed to execute and committed a shot clock violation of its own. However, Xavier threw the inbounds pass out of bounds with 2.2 seconds left but Wilcher could not hit a 3-pointer as time expired sending the game to overtime.
The Johnnies dominated the first three minutes of overtime, opening on an 8-0 run before Xavier trimmed its deficit to to four, 74-70, but Dayvion McKnight missed a driving layup that would have cut the lead to two as the Red Storm salted the game away at the free throw line.
Xavier shot 50-percent from the field and 66.7-percent from distance while building its lead in the first half but was held to just 35.7-percent in the second half.
St. John's will enter its bye week on a five-game winning streak and having won 12-of-13 games as it travels to face Georgetown (13-6, 4-4 Big East) on Tuesday night (6:30 p.m. ET, FS1).