Game #9: St. Johns 71, Tulane 79 (loss)

For now, the boxscore.

This Pico is headed to farmland for a day. It was a dispiriting loss, and listening to it on New Orleans conservative talk radio was insult to injury.

The team had a 6 point lead, fouled out Tulane's main player in 7 minutes worth of action, and managed to go very very cold in the second half. Even the usual foul the other team and then score a three stall ALMOST worked, except the Red Storm couldn't shoot with Dick Cheney's hunting rifle. From SNY.tv:

The scouting report was followed precisely. The book on David Gomez, Tulane's leading scorer and rebounder, is that he's foul prone. So when the senior forward fouled out with 8:16 left in the game after playing only seven minutes, St. John's, which was up two points at the time, seemingly was at a major advantage. "That's like an edge off their team," Red Storm junior forward Anthony Mason Jr. said.

The Johnnies just forgot they still had to score. In the second half, St. John's went over seven minutes without a field goal -- from 9:36 to 1:55 left in the game -- in a 79-71 loss to Tulane on Saturday afternoon at the Stan Sheriff Center in the fifth-place game of the Rainbow Classic.

and from Red Storm Sports:

Tulane outscored the Red Storm 22-8 over the next eight minutes, a St. John's drought in which the squad missed 11 field goals and was actually held scoreless for a three-minute, 16-second stretch. The Red Storm totaled 28 fouls for the contest, opening the door for a 27-of-34 Green Wave effort at the free throw line, 25-of-31 coming in the second half.