{"id":426709,"date":"2024-12-01T18:30:25","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T18:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=426709"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"St-John-s-rides-fast-start-to-beat-Harvard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/St-John-s-rides-fast-start-to-beat-Harvard\/","title":{"rendered":"St. John&#8217;s rides fast start to beat Harvard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>RJ Luis Jr. scored 13 of his 24 points in the second half, including two key baskets in the final 3 1\/2 minutes, as St. John&#8217;s never trailed and pulled away late for a 77-64 victory over visiting Harvard on Saturday in Queens, N.Y. Luis shot 9 of 18 and converted a dunk with 3:31 left and a putback layup with 2:11 left to give the Red Storm (6-2) a 73-60 lead after they allowed Harvard to get within eight points. Luis also grabbed 10 rebounds for his third double-double this season. Kadary Richmond added 18 points and eight rebounds to help St. John&#8217;s bounce back from two losses last weekend in the Bahamas. Simeon Wilcher added 12 and freshman Jaiden Glover contributed all 11 of his points before halftime as St. John&#8217;s shot 44.3 percent and withstood shooting 22.2 percent (6 of 27) from behind the arc. Chandler Pigge scored 15 points as Harvard (2-6) lost its second game this season against a power conference opponent. Robert Hinton, Evan Nelson and Louis Lesmond added 11 apiece as the Crimson shot 36.1 percent, made 27.6 percent from 3 (8 of 29) and got outscored 42-20 in the paint. The Red Storm scored the game&#8217;s first nine points and raced out to a 24-8 lead on consecutive 3s by Glover, the second with 7:44 remaining. After Harvard cut the lead to 33-26 on two free throws by Pigge with 1:33 remaining, Glover gave St. John&#8217;s a 40-28 lead at halftime by hitting a desperation 3 before the buzzer. A basket by Richmond opened an 18-point lead a little over two minutes into the second half and St. John&#8217;s allowed Harvard to keep hanging around. The Crimson got within 52-42 on a 3-pointer by Lesmond with 11:26 left and trailed 58-50 with 8:04 left after Pigge split a pair at the line. Harvard kept hanging around and was within 63-55 after Hinton hit a jumper with 5:40 left resulting in Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino calling a 30-second timeout After the timeout, Nelson&#8217;s layup made it 65-57 with 4:27 remaining before St. John&#8217;s pulled away in the final minutes. &#8211;Field Level Media<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/bf984db07a36ae80bf3b0a43bb286814.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Nov 13, 2024; Queens, New York, USA; St. John&#8217;s Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino yells instructions in the second half against the Wagner Seahawks at Carnesecca Arena. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>-Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RJ Luis Jr. scored 13 of his 24 points in the second half, including two&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}