If it felt like the same story for the St. John’s basketball team in Las Vegas, that’s because it was and it had the same ending.
The No. 15 Red Storm were able to rally from a seven-point second half deficit only to see No. 16 Iowa State (5-0) make the clutch plays late to escape with the 83-82 victory in the opening game of the Players Era Festival.
After trailing by five, 79-74, with three minutes remaining, Oziyah Sellers drilled back-to-back 3-pointers to give the Johnnies (3-2) a one-point lead. Iowa State star Tamin Lipsey was injured after Sellers’ second triple with 2:05 left and did not return.
The injury didn’t impact the Cyclones who immediately answered with a layup by Milan Momcilovic to give Iowa State a lead it would not relinquish. It was his most important bucket in a game that he scored 23 points on 5-of-9 shooting from 3-point range.
“With the game on the line, we just didn’t come up with the rebounds necessary to put the other team away,” Rick Pitino said after the loss. “Unfortunate that we lost another good game.”
St. John’s missed four consecutive shots before a putback layup by Dillon Mitchell as the buzzer sounded. A layup from Zuby Ejiofor, a midrange jumper and driving layup by Sellers, and Ejiofor’s 3-point prayer in the final seconds.
The Red Storm, trailing by three with 9.6 seconds left, had a timeout remaining but opted not to use it as Sellers pushed the ball up the floor and eventually passed to Ejiofor with no shot available for him.
Pitino did not think about using his final timeout in that situation after already getting to talk to his team twice in the final two minutes with the stoppage for the injury to Lipsey and an Iowa State timeout with 38 seconds left.
St. John’s defense looked terrible early, allowing Iowa State to make 8-of-11 shots to begin but slowly started to settle in, setting up its full court pressure and using that to create a 21-6 run to take a 5-point lead.
It was sluggish again coming out of the locker room with a pair of turnovers as the Cyclones scored the opening six points of the second half, which turned into a 19-10 run.
Sellers had his best game of the season with 20 points while the forward trio of Bryce Hopkins, Mitchell, and Ejiofor combined for 44 points and 25 rebounds.
After losing both of its marquee games to begin the season, the Red Storm return to action on Tuesday afternoon (4:30 p.m. ET, truTV) against Baylor, who defeated Creighton on Monday.