Zuby Ejiofor has experienced plenty of winning over these last three seasons. Some of those victories have been more dramatic than they ever needed to be.
So there couldn’t have been a more fitting swan-song for Ejiofor and the Red Storm’s senior class than St. John’s rallying from a 12-point deficit to defeat Georgetown in a 72-69 thriller.
On a night of offensive frustration for the Red Storm, Zuby Ejiofor reliably scored in both halves, posting a game-high 23 points, seven rebounds, and five assists
to go along with two steals and two blocks. However, the Red Storm’s late rally doesn’t happen without Joson Sanon. The sophomore guard scored all of his 15 points in the second half, shooting 5-of-9 from the field and 3-of-7 from deep after halftime.
Whatever rhythm St. John’s had when they crushed Villanova was missing in the first half on Tuesday night. Excluding the 18 combined points from Zuby Ejiofor and Dylan Darling, the rest of the Red Storm shot 3-of-16 before halftime (18.8%).
The opposite could be said for the Hoyas, who hit 50% from the field in the first half. Defensive specialist Jeremiah Williams was having one of his best offensive nights of the season, scoring 11 early points, before he exited the game with a leg injury with 1:08 left in the first half. The Hoyas would take a 34-26 lead into halftime, but their momentum wasn’t stalled by Williams’s absence.
While Williams nursed his leg injury for the first few minutes of the second half, Kayvaun Mulready picked up the scoring slack. The sophomore scored eight of his team-high 20 points in the first five minutes of the half. Williams joined his team again, and Georgetown was firmly in the driver’s seat. Malik Mack made a layup to bring the Georgetown lead to 48-36 with 14:08 remaining.
The Red Storm struggled to find a jolt up until Ian Jackson made a layup and the free throw, which was originally ruled a foul on the floor by Kayvaun Mulready before the officials reversed the call to raucous cheers from the MSG crowd that was dormant up until that point, cutting Georgetown’s lead to 48-40. St. John’s followed Jackson’s layup-and-one with a 13-4 run over the next four minutes to get within two points, which also ended on an old-fashioned three-point play by Zuby Ejiofor with 8:01 remaining.
After a series of free throws by Dylan Darling and Zuby Ejiofor to tie the game, Darling pounced on a pass right before Malik Mack could get a firm grip of the ball and sprinted downcourt to score a breakaway layup that gave St. John’s the lead for the first time since the early stages of the game. Darling would finish with 12 points (4-of-11 shooting), three rebounds, three assists, and he tied a season-high with four steals.
Georgetown still wasn’t going away. Kayvaun Mulready scored five of the Hoyas’ next six points, including a three-pointer in the dying seconds of the shot clock with 2:34 remaining to make it a 66-65 St. John’s lead. After the Johnnies went up by five again, Malik Mack scored a tricky step-back mid-range jumper with 1:01 left to keep the Hoyas within one possession.
After a missed three by Darling, Jeremiah Williams hushed the Garden crowd when he backed down Bryce Hopkins and made a layup while drawing the foul, giving visitors a chance to tie the game with 16 seconds remaining. Although he delivered on offense for the first 39 minutes of the night, Williams came up short when it mattered most and missed the would-be game-tying free throw. Hopkins made a pair of free throws to put the Johnnies up by three, and with one final chance to force overtime, Caleb Williams missed a triple off the back iron as the buzzer sounded.
St. John’s (24-6, 17-2 Big East) will wrap up its regular season against Seton Hall (19-10, 9-9 Big East) at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Friday, March 6. Tip-off is scheduled for 9 p.m., and the game can be watched on FS1.
