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NCAA Tournament Recap (Samford-St Johns)
Posted: Fri March 12, 1999 at 12:21 a.m EST ORLANDO (Ticker) -- Ron Artest scored 17 points as third-seeded St. John's scored the game's first 13 points and never looked back en route to a 69-43 pummeling of NCAA Tournament debutante and 14th-seeded Samford in the first round of the South Region. Lavor Postell added 14 for the Red Storm (26-8), who played the interior passing lanes superbly and then were able to deny open 3-point looks on the perimeter to Samford. St. John's did not allow a point over the first 8:26 and led by single digits just once over the final 21:45. The Red Storm, who lost in the first round to Detroit last year, will play the winner of the game between sixth-seeded Indiana and 11th-seeded George Washington in Saturday's second round. St. John's coach Mike Jarvis left GW for the Red Storm prior to the season. Reed Rawlings scored 14 points for the Bulldogs (24-6), who were in the field of 64 for the first time after winning the Trans America Athletic Conference tournament. Samford came no closer than 10 points in the second half as it struggled to find any offensive rhythm with its Princeton-like offense of spacing, angles and motions. St. John's hit the floor running and raced to an 11-0 lead on a basket by Artest 5:42 into the game. Postell made a 15-footer with 12 minutes left before Marc Salyers hit a 3-pointer to end Samford's drought with 11:33 to go. Salyers' second 3-pointer of the game pulled the Bulldogs within 20-9 at the 9:14 mark, but Donald Emanuel had a free throw and Artest a lay-in sandwiched around four foul shots by Postell as the Red Storm extended their lead to 27-9 with 5:36 remaining. Samford countered with an 11-2 run, closing within 29-20 on a long-range shot by Mario Lopez, but Erick Barkley sliced into the lane for a lay-in before Artest had a steal and layup to rebuild the lead to 33-20 with 1:15 left. The Bulldogs did not challenge bigger St. John's on the inside, taking 19 of their 24 first-half shots from beyond the arc and making six. The Red Storm made 11-of-26 (42 percent) in the first half and also added 9-of-12 free throws. St. John's, which held a whopping 45-23 edge in rebounds, continued to clog the interior in the second half and the Bulldogs continued their errant outside shooting. They made 5-of-24 shots in the final 20 minutes, including 1-of-14 from 3-point range. Samford made just 7-of-33 shots from beyond the arc and hit a woeful 25 percent (12-of-48) overall. The shooting performance tied the third-worst in the first two rounds in NCAA Tournament, equaling Massachusetts in 1962 and Santa Clara three years ago.© 2000 Sportsticker Enterprises, LP
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