Game #30: St. John's 74, West Virginia 83 (OT)

Box score

St. John's falls to West Virginia in an exciting game at Madison Square Garden. The Storm ends the season at 11-19, 5-13 Big East; West Virginia enters the Big East tournament at 22-9, 11-7 Big East, which should be good enough to get them into the NCAA Tournament.

So the season is over. It extended 5 more minutes, but the Johnnies couldn't pull off the win. For most of the players, it's time to prepare an offseason of working out and improvements. And for two walk-ons and much-maligned 4-year starter Eugene Lawrence, it's the goodbye to their time on the Jamaica campus as ballplayers. They are records and memory now.

St. John's put up a valiant fight, actually; and Coach Roberts put out the best offensive players to contend with an offensive team, for once. The team played hard, and Larry Wright had an excellent game... once he came off the bench with about 10 minutes left in the first half. Wright shot 6 for 9 from beyond the arc, and hit his one shot inside the arc.

Burrell battled foul trouble the whole game, and picked up his fourth foul soon after scoring his only field goal. And he couldn't defend Joe Alexander, the athletic face-up forward. But as a whole, the team caught fire in the second half playing small and fast. It wasn't enough, in Eugene Lawrence's last game-- and certainly, there were some ill-advised drives-- and now the Red Storm waits to play until next year.

I'll be keeping track of coaching movements, conference tournaments, and analyzing the players' performances. Along with those other sports. So keep checking in.

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