St. John's Falls To Miami

Rating Miami's two wins over St. John's this season wasn't hard at all for Johnny Hemsley.

"It was tremendous getting them at home, winning at Miami Arena," he said Wednesday night after scoring 29 points in the 25th-ranked Hurricanes' 73-70 victory over No. 9 St. John's. "But this. This was in New York at Madison Square Garden. We came out and did a great job."

The Hurricanes outscored the Red Storm 14-3 over the final 5½ minutes for the series sweep. They are the only non-Top 10 team to beat St. John's this season.

"It's a significant win because St. John's is one of the winningest programs in the history of college basketball and we're one of the programs with the least tradition," Miami coach Leonard Hamilton said. "Any time you get a good win you accelerate the process a little bit."

The Hurricanes (14-5, 8-3 Big East) beat St. John's 84-79 earlier in the season and with the latest victory evened the all-time series between the schools at 9-9 with Miami winning six of the last nine meetings.

"They just found a way," Hamilton said of his team. "There was a little window of opportunity and we stepped through at the end. It could have gone either way."

It looked like the Red Storm (17-6, 8-3) would avenge their worst loss of the season -- the others were all by four points or less -- as they led 67-59 with 5:37 left on a layup by Reggie Jessie. But St. John's failed to get another field goal the rest of the game as its halfcourt offense worked down the shot clock but didn't score any baskets.

"When you get an opportunity to win when you haven't played well you must close it out," St. John's coach Mike Jarvis said. "You cannot make mental mistakes in those situations and we are making too many mental mstakes."

Erick Barkley made one of two free throws with 3:36 to play to give the Red Storm a 69-63 lead. Tim James, who finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds, hit a jumper with 1:59 left to get Miami within 69-65. Consecutive three-point plays by Hemsley and Elton Tyler, who finished with 12 points, gave the Hurricanes a 71-69 lead with 22 seconds to play.

St. John's again was patient in the halfcourt and Ron Artest was fouled with 7.8 seconds to play. Artest, a 66 percent free throw shooter for the season who was 5-for-12 at the line until that point, made one of two to get the Red Storm within 71-70.

Hemsley, who finished 12-of-13 from the foul line, made two free throws with 7.0 seconds left. Artest's 3-point attempt from the left side at the buzzer missed and Miami had the sweep.

"It was my foul shooting not the team's foul shooting," Artest said, referring to St. John's 15-of-24 effort. "That was the worst. I always try to make them. They were just off."

St. John's, which had lost two of its three previous games to No. 1 Connecticut and No. 2 Duke while beating No. 16 Syracuse, was led by Artest with 22 points, while Barkley had 16 and Bootsy Thornton 15.

"Sometimes you are less aggressive with a late or early lead," Jarvis said. "When things are going well you tend to relax. That's human nature and that's what we tend to do."

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