NEW YORK - Rutgers (9-11, 0-7) reduced a 16-point second half deficit to two with just under three minutes to play, but would get no closer in a 70-59 loss to St. John’s (11-8, 2-5) Saturday evening at Madison Square Garden. Freshman guard Mike Rosario (Jersey City, N.J.) scored 16 points to lead the Scarlet Knights in the scoring column, while also registering a career-high five steals.
The Red Storm led 56-40 with 10 minutes to play only to see RU get within 61-59 on a three-pointer by
Jaron Griffin (Manchester, N.J.) with 2:50 left. The trey was one of three made by the senior with under 8:00 minutes to play and capped a 5-0 run. Unfortunately, the basket would be the last of the evening for the Scarlet Knights, as the Red Storm scored the game’s final nine points to ensure the win.
Rutgers made 38.5 percent (20-52) of its field goal attempts, while St. John’s shot 52.9 percent (27-51). The Red Storm received just two points from its bench, but out-rebounded the Scarlet Knights by a 37-23 margin.
Rutgers once again had a strong showing from the free throw line, making 81.3 percent (13-16) from the charity stripe, including four-of-four from Corey Chandler (Newark, N.J.) and five-of-six by Gregory Echenique (Guatire, Venezuela). Chandler and Echenique both finished with nine points.
Paris Horne scored a career-high 27 points on 12-of-13 shooting to pace the home squad. He was complemented by D.J. Kennedy, who finished 16 points and six assists. Kennedy finished 10-of-11 from the line and St. John's was 12-for-16 overall.
The Scarlet Knights return to the hardwood Thursday evening at the Prudential Center in Newark to face rival Seton Hall in a 9:00 p.m. tip-off. The game will be televised live nationally on ESPN2.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Rutgers Head Coach Fred Hill
On tonight’s game:
“One, I thought they executed really well and two, everything we threw at them they made shots. It’s going to happen sometimes. Paris Horne had a phenomenal day. It was a high paced game for both of us. We came out and executed really well and got the ball where we wanted and scored it and we couldn’t stop them. They continued on that pace whether we played man, whether we went zone. They did a great job. Burrell came out and Paris Horne came out. And when you make shots you get confidence. That’s the way the game goes and they did a terrific job in the first half.”
On team’s mental toughness:
“I can’t find a trend. You talked about the first half today in the last two games, but before that in the last three games, our first halves were great and our second halves weren’t. The only trend that there is is we haven’t been able to play forty minutes of good basketball. We play good basketball in spurts. We haven’t had the discipline to play throughout the whole course of the game. We cut the game down to two, but we made two mistakes. We were undisciplined twice on the defensive end. Those are things that we did. I’m not taking anything away from them, they exploited our mistakes. Paris Horne drills a three because we made a defensive mistake. That should never happen. And then we made two more in the last two minutes of the game when it was down to two. So those are the things you have to get better at. You have to have discipline; you have to have some mental toughness. I love my guys for the character they have, the heart they show, but we’ve got to get mentally better, mentally tougher and have more discipline. And a little bit of experience and a little bit of digging down a little bit deeper.”
On playing St. John’s at Madison Square Garden:
“Every game for us is the same. I don’t want to belittle it because this is what I think is important: it’s important for metropolitan area basketball for St. John’s, Rutgers and Seton Hall to be very, very good. This is a game that should be a great rivalry and there should be 18,000 fans here in the Garden. And that’s what’s important. It’s important for Norm (Roberts), it’s important for me, it’s important for Bobby (Gonzalez), for our programs to continually get better.”
