It was the kind of win that makes enduring all the headaches of college coaching worthwhile, and Patrick Ewing has endured his share of headaches this season.
That’s probably why he called the Hoyas’ 73-72 come-from-behind win over St. John’s on Sunday afternoon at the Garden “a season-defining victory.”
Certainly, it could be the kind of triumph that can galvanize a team and spur it on to great things. The Hoyas (13-9, 3-6 in the Big East) were down 50-33 early in the second half and could have called it an afternoon. Nobody would have blamed them.
Playing without leading scorer Mac McClung, who was out with a foot injury, and winless in four previous Big East road games, Georgetown looked like it wasn’t going to offer much in a nationally televised appetizer to Super Bowl Sunday.
When St. John’s forward Josh Roberts putback a missed shot to give the Red Storm a 17-point lead with 16:04 remaining, the hosts were in cruise control.
But the undermanned Hoyas, who shot 28.6 percent from the field in the first half, kept fighting and kept defending. Their pressure defense forced the Red Storm (13-10, 2-8) into 12 second-half turnovers (after committing none in the first) that ultimately lost the game.
The Red Storm’s final turnover was brutal. It came in the final seconds as junior point guard Rasheen Dunn stumbled trying to attack the basket and lost the ball without coming close to attempting a game-winning shot.
“They made the right plays and we didn’t make those plays,” St. John’s coach Mike Anderson said. “It’s a tough, tough loss.”
Credit Ewing and his team for that. The Garden gods didn’t let down the Knicks legend as the Hoyas ended a three-game losing streak.
“To me this a great win, a great win,” Ewing said, “Undermanned; down [17] at one point, my team kept fighting. They kept making plays. To me this is a season-defining win. I told them we have to continue to build on this.”
Ewing has spent much of this season trying to get the Hoyas program headed in the right direction after a troubling start. Four players either left or were dismissed by the university in December after issues arose involving assault, burglary and harassment, rocking a team that had high expectations of advancing to the NCAA Tournament this March. There were even concerns about Ewing’s job status.
Keeping this team united and focused has been perhaps the toughest challenge of Ewing’s brief coaching career at his alma mater. But the Hoyas are surviving, beating St. John’s with two walk-ons playing ample minutes.
“After we had our episode in the middle of the season, I thought our guys came together as a group,” Ewing said. “We had a great non-conference schedule. When we came into the Big East we took a step back. But we still have nine more games to go. We have continue to build on that.”
Jahvon Blair led Georgetown with 23 points, while Jagan Mosely had 16. Omer Yurtseven, the 7-foot senior center, had 13, including the Hoyas’ final go-head basket on a lay-in with 10 seconds remaining. It was the first time Georgetown had the lead since midway through the first half.
“We just told everyone to keep on playing and take play-by-play, stop-by-stop and we’d just inch it in,” Blair said. “That’s what we did.”
There’s no timetable for when McClung will get back.
“I told the guys we still have enough to be successful,” Ewing said. “Guys have to step up. Jahvon stepped up and Omer played extremely well in the second half. We need for everyone to continue to do their part.”
While St. John’s has to figure out how it all fell apart so fast on Sunday, Ewing sounded like a coach who had salvaged his season.
“We can’t take a step forward, getting a great win like this and go backwards,” he said. “We just have to continue to play.”
