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Stormy reign St. John's discards dissension for Big East tourney title
Posted: Sunday March 12, 2000 02:20 AM
NEW YORK (AP) -- Six weeks of off-the-court problems wasn't enough to keep St. John's from winning its first Big East championship in 14 years. The third-seeded Red Storm ended Connecticut's two-year run as conference champion with an 80-70 victory Saturday night. Despite two suspensions of leading scorer Erick Barkley for violations of NCAA rules and an altercation between Barkley and a teammate at halftime of the semifinal game, St. John's (24-7) managed to win 11 of 12 games and sweep through the Big East tournament, avenging last year's 83-69 championship game loss to Connecticut. "It's a great night, a great day, week, month, year," second-year St. John's coach Mike Jarvis said. "I hope we'll have this feeling again before another 14 years but the wait was well worth it." Barkley was suspended for two games in early February for a violation of NCAA rules involving exchanging cars with a family friend and was suspended a second time for one game at the end of the month for receiving financial help from his former AAU team in paying his tuition at Maine Central Institute. Then on Friday night, he said he was "taking a leave of absence" and wouldn't play in the championship game. He and Bootsy Thornton had some kind of altercation at halftime of the win over Miami, but the two seemed fine a day later. Thornton, selected the tournament's outstanding player, had 22 points and Barkley, an all-tournament team selection, had 19 as the 19th-ranked Red Storm shot 59.2 percent (29-for-49). "It all goes back to the fact this team is a family," Jarvis said. "We had a little family dispute last night and one of the family members redefined what a leave of absence is." Barkley stayed at his home in Queens on Friday night rather than with the team in a Manhattan hotel. "There was no doubt in my mind I was playing," he said of how he felt when he woke up Saturday. "I just wanted to get to the shootaround and apologize to the team and get back to winning and get the Big East championship." Thornton, who was 4-for-6 from 3-point range, said the latest incident was just an addition to the list. "When we're on the court it's the only time we can focus," he said. "We can't worry about things off the court." Fourth-seeded Connecticut (24-9), the defending national champion which was trying to become the first team to win three straight Big East titles, was playing its fourth game in as many days. The Huskies were never able to get going as the Red Storm forced them into 17 turnovers, 12 in the first half. St. John's, which won the Big East in 1983 and 1986, beat the Huskies three times this season. "From our standpoint, we weren't physically tired but mentally we didn't do what I thought we would do," Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said. "We knew Bootsy would shoot the 3-pointers and we still gave him five, six feet of cushion. "I don't think there's any excuses. They beat us, they were the better team and they've proven that three times." The Red Storm closed the first half with a 10-4 run for a 37-28 lead. They extended it to 60-45 with 9:44 left on a jumper by Thornton. Connecticut, which had a six-game winning streak snapped, used an 8-0 run to get within 64-58 with 4:45 left. But Anthony Glover, the hero of the semifinal victory with two free throws with 2.2 seconds left, made two free throws and Thornton scored when his layup was goaltended and the Red Storm led 68-58 with 3:43 left. The Huskies got within six points twice in the final 40 seconds, but Barkley made two free throws each time to get the lead back to eight. "Finally, St. John's got a championship. I got a championship," Barkley said. "After we got run over by UConn last year this feels great." Khalid El-Amin, who averaged 18.3 points in Connecticut's first three games, finished with 13 -- nine in the final three minutes -- as he played through foul trouble throughout the game. "Two of those were freak fouls," Calhoun said, referring to what appeared to be accidental trip and a collision. "What really stymied us in the final 10 minutes of the first half was Barkley locked up (El-Amin's backup) Tony (Robertson) and Tony let himself be locked up. In the second half he did a better job but that did allow us to stay in real close touch." Glover finished with 15 points and Lavor Postell had 14 for St. John's.
Albert Mouring led the Huskies with 22 points, including 6-of-11
shooting from 3-point range.
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