It wasn’t supposed to be a marathon. It was a tune up. A continuation of the preseason work that both teams have put it. Instead, it was an instant classic that will not count and very few will remember.
The St. John’s basketball team outlasted Rutgers on Sunday afternoon inside Madison Square Garden in quadruple overtime, 104-99.
The Johnnies trailed by as many as 20 points, 48-28, after the first possession of the second half before using a 30-4 run to lead by six, 60-54.
The lead remained at six points with 6:18 remaining but the Scarlet Knights had one last push to reclaim its lead, 71-69, with 38.2 seconds left before a layup from Quinn Ellis sent the game overtime.
St. John’s had opportunities to win the game in both the first and second overtime, but Ellis would miss a 3-pointer at the end of the first extra session and Ian Jackson could not get a driving layup to fall in the closing seconds of the second overtime.
An 8-2 run in the middle of the fourth overtime was enough to create separation from Rutgers to win the game.
Jackson and Keyshawn Hall led the way with 24 points each while Ellis finished with 13 points, eight rebounds, nine assists, four blocks, and only one turnover in 56 minutes.
“Judging from the first half, I didn’t expect four overtimes,” head coach Rick Pitino said after the game. “But we learned a lot because we’ve made so many mistakes. As I’ve said all fall, fundamentally, we are not a good basketball team.”
Yet Pitino didn’t have a vintage halftime rant on his team. Rather, he was poignant and direct with his message but in a calm manner.
“He came in there, just talked to us, and kinda yelled once, but then he just let it go and said, ‘Man, you guys need to lock in’,” Keyshawn Hall recalled of the halftime locker room.
“He was telling us to play hard as a team and don’t embarrass ourselves out here and don’t embarrass the fans.”
St. John’s will wrap its preseason on Sunday, October 25 (12:00 p.m. ET) against Texas inside Madison Square Garden.
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