When St. John's needed big buckets on Saturday against Harvard, RJ Lewis Jr. and Kadare Richmond found ways to lift the Red Storm to the win.
The 77-64 win was closer than many expected, and the Crimson was able to cut the deficit to eight goals on three separate occasions in the second half.
The Johnnies were coming off a tough trip to the Bahamas, where they lost winnable games to Baylor and Georgia.
It was Lewis who made a big layup with 7:19 remaining Saturday to restore St. John's to a double-digit lead. He followed that up with a second-chance 3-pointer less than a minute later. The guard scored 24 points on 9-for-18 shooting and grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds.
A layup by Richmond in the paint with just over three minutes remaining helped St. John's respond after Harvard's Evan Nelson made it an eight-point game again. Richmond finished with 18 points and eight rebounds in more than 30 minutes.
Lewis' goal with just over three minutes left restored the Red Storm's lead back to double digits. St. John's closed the final 3:43 on a 10-7 run to preserve the win.
“Not necessarily,” Lewis replied when asked if there was a certain mentality when the game approached. “I feel like basketball is a running game, so they went running. We had to make sure we had enough stops to ultimately win the game. [Richmond and I] Two leaders in court. He's a great goalkeeper, so he took advantage of what he saw. I played through what I got offensively, and that's it.
Head coach Rick Pitino used 10 players a game, but never turned to Devon Smith. The St. John's guard has been in the doghouse since he reacted poorly to being sat during a loss to Georgia.
Instead of suspending Smith, Pitino asked his players to determine the punishment. The coach confirmed that they had decided to bench Smith on Saturday, and said the decision would be theirs when Smith returns to the lineup.
“It's very possible. It's up to the team,” Pitino said when asked if Smith might not play the next game against Kansas State, which visits Junee on Dec. 7.
St. John's never trailed Harvard and shot 44.3 percent from the field and 22.2 percent from 3-point range.
Jayden Glover came off the bench to score 11 points in about 19 minutes. Glover averaged five minutes in five games prior this season.
“I think it was great for Jayden tonight,” Pitino said. “This type of experience is invaluable and can only help our basketball team. I have great confidence in Jayden.”
The Johnnies rolled right off the bat, jumping out to a 9-0 lead, starting on a Richmond layup. Lewis scored four points down the stretch and Simon Wilsher capped it off with a corner 3 just over three minutes into the game.
The Crimson didn't score its first basket until 3:31 into the first half, but stifled the Red Storm's run with six straight points to cut the lead to three. Lewis responded with a layup that gave St. John's a 13-2 lead to put them ahead by 16, their largest lead of the half.
Richmond extended St. John's' lead to 18 early in the second half, but the Crimson cut it back to eight with 8:04 remaining, when Chandler Paige hit a free throw.
“Teams like Harvard, Princeton and Columbia are now giving us a little bit of a problem,” Pitino said. “They lose by five goals and they give us problems defensively because we are a help team. We give you help and they can give you problems.
He added: “We didn't get much from our four and five group today. This is largely due to diffusion, but we'll take it. “It's a good win for us after a long journey.”
