Ray Floriani's tempo-free look at St. John's-Memphis

By Ray Floriani

LYNDHURST, NJ- A final second Wesley Witherspoon penetration punctuated by a spinning motion around the rim before the ball finally decided to drop, ended St. John’s season. The Red Storm dropped a heartbreaker, 73-71 to Memphis at the FedEx Forum. The first round NIT game was one of the more hotly contested and entertaining of the opening round.

In a 63 possession game the four factors (Off. Eff.; eFG%, FT Rate, OReb%, TO Rate
St. John’s: 112, 49, 16, 37, 13
Memphis: 118, 63, 30, 21, 18

Both teams protected the ball with the TO rates under 20%. This was a game of wills. Would Memphis’ three point touch or St. John’s rebounding win out. As noted Norm Roberts has had the Red Storm play hard all year so the edge in offensive rebounding percentage was not a surprise.

Memphis was lights out, 10 of 13 from three the first half. They were 1 of 7 the second half. The lone trey a big one by Witherspoon (who else?) who shared scoring honors with st. John’s DJ Kennedy (18 points). Even with that cooling off the last twenty minutes, Memphis finished with a 55% (11 of 20) mark from three. Those treys played no small part in the Tigers’s gaudy 63% eFG mark.

Memphis coach Josh Pastner, who looks young enough to get ‘carded’ in one of those Blues clubs ESPN had shots of during time outs, did a great job changing defenses to try to keep St. John’s off balance. To their credit, the Big east reps hung around until the final possession.