The Garden had a hangover.
There was no juice. No buzz. It felt like the St. John’s fans used all its bullets in its win over UConn on Friday night and it was leaving the team on the floor by itself against Xavier on Monday night.
The building finally started to wake up after Sadiku Ibine Ayo hit a 3-pointer to tie the game at 60 with 12:06 left. After Xavier took a five-point lead, 69-64, the No. 17 Johnnies rattled off a 10-2 run to lead by three, 74-71, behind Dylan Darling, Bryce Hopkins, and Zuby Ejiofor, but then they stalled.
In the final three minutes of regulation, St. John’s missed two free throws and four shots while committing one turnover as Xavier took a two-point lead, 78-76, with 47.2 seconds left.
After three misses near the rim, Oziyah Sellers tipped in his own miss with 16.3 remaining to send the game to overtime where the Red Storm finally controlled things.
The Johnnies outscored Xavier 9-4 in the extra session, winning 87-82 for its tenth straight win.
“In two games against them, [Richard Pitino] totally out coached me, and their staff out coached us,” Rick Pitino said after the victory. “We could not stop them in their offense.”
Xavier (12-12, 4-9 Big East) shot 44.7-percent from the field for the game, but after connecting on 51.9-percent (28-for-54) through the first 31 minutes the Musketeers only made 27.2-percent (6-for-22) in the closing 14 minutes.
Zuby Ejiofor, who finished with 25 points, seven rebounds, five assists, and two steals, notched six points in overtime for the Storm (19-5, 12-1 Big East), four of which came from the free throw line.
“He didn’t play well tonight,” Pitino explained about Ejiofor. “I mean, he had great stats, but he didn’t play well tonight. But that being said, he played good enough to get us a victory.”
“When the game was on the line, Bryce Hopkins won the game…He knew that he had to win it.”
Hopkins went for 19 points and nine rebounds and recorded two offensive rebounds on St. John’s final possession of regulation to keep the game alive. In overtime, he recorded two key steals that led to a total of four points and two Xavier players fouling out.
“They’ve out played us twice, but we just gutted it out in the final minutes to come away with a victory, which good teams do,” Pitino added about the Musketeers.
St. John’s now enters first place in the Big East by virtue of its head-to-head tiebreaker over UConn as it will head back on the road for its next game against Providence on Saturday afternoon (1:00 p.m. ET, TNT).