2017 Big East Tournament: St. John’s survives Georgetown in old school conference battle

In a chippy, physical 2017 Big East Tournament game that consisted of a second half benches-clearing scuffle, St. John’s defeated Georgetown, 74-73.

It was only the 8-9 game between St. John’s and Georgetown, but the first game of the 2017 Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden consisted of physical, chippy play and dramatics reminiscent of an old conference rivalry that dominated the 1980s.

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There were multiple hard fouls by both teams, coaches trading words and a missed layup at the buzzer. But in the end, the St. John’s Red Storm survived another day as they defeated the Hoyas, 74-73, to advance to play the No. 1 seeded Villanova Wildcats at Noon ET on Thursday. The Red Storm snapped a six-game Big East Tournament losing streak as they won their first game in the postseason event since Steve Lavin was the head coach back in 2011.

St. John’s was led by four players who scored in double figures, Shamorie Ponds (17 points on 5-of-14 shooting), Bashir Ahmed (14 points on 4-of-10 shooting) and Darien Williams (10 points and four rebounds off the bench). Marcus LoVett struggled with foul trouble in the first half and only finished with four points, but it was St. John’s ability to take care of the basketball (eight turnovers) and make plays in transition (eight fast break points) that sparked the victory.

While the Johnnies played well in the second half to earn their 14th victory of the year, the biggest story of this game was the scuffle that happened in the second half. L.J. Peak drove into the lane with 8:35 left in the game but was pulled down by the arm by St. John’s forward Amar Alibegovic. Peak came rushing over to have words with Alibegovic, however, tempers flared and emotions escalated after the junior forward was pushed from behind by Bradley Hayes.

Head coach Chris Mullin came out onto the court to see if his players were OK — Alibegovic ended up in the stands. While walking back to the bench, though, Mullin had words with Georgetown head coach John Thompson III, Georgetown assistant Patrick Ewing Jr. and Peak.

“I just went out there to see what was going on,” Mullin said in his press conference post game. “I saw Amar go into the stands. I wanted to make sure he was okay. Everything else was nothing. I think it was just really competitive juices flowing towards the end of the game.”

Even though no Georgetown player was given a flagrant or techinical after the sequence of events, Alibegovic was assessed a flagrant one while Ewing and Mullin were given technicals of their own.

To add to the chippiness, this was a competitive game in the second half. St. John’s had an eight-point lead with 14:42 left and a six-point lead with 3:03 remaining, but it came down to the final seconds. Ponds missed a difficult reverse layup with 19 seconds left and a point blank layup by Marcus Derrickson rolled off the rim to end the game.

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While neither of these teams are going to the NCAA Tournament (or even the NIT), this game was about pride more than anything else. The Big East is a better conference when St. John’s and Georgetown are playing their best basketball. That isn’t the case at this point (the Johnnies are rebuilding and Georgetown has missed three straight NCAA Tournaments), but a little flash back to the “old” rivalry on Wednesday gave us a “what could be” moment.