Published: January 03, 2007
NEW YORK (A.P.)
Daryll Hill and Aaron Spears both came up big for St. John's on
Wednesday night, lifting the Red Storm to a 64-53 victory over
DePaul and a 1-0 record in BIG EAST conference play for the first
time since 2002-03.
The Red Storm achieved victory for the eighth time in nine
games, snapping the Blue Demons' five-game winning streak in part
by taking advantage of their free throw shooting.
Spears, playing for the first time since serving the suspension
for an violation of team rules, scored all six of his points in the
final 9½ minutes.
Hill, who has been battling a knee injury all season, looked
more like the player who was an All-Big East selection two years
ago, scoring nine points, including a 3-pointer from deep in the
corner as the shot clock ran out that gave the Red Storm (10-4) a
59-52 lead with 45 seconds to play.
"I felt I owed my teammates something so I wanted to play hard
and contribute,'' said Spears, a 6-foot-10 senior. "I felt real
good. It felt good being with my team.''
Hill, who has missed two games this season because of the sore
knee and has become the sixth man, came in averaging 6.5 points per
game, well off the 20.7 he averaged as a sophomore. He was 4-for-6
from the field and no shot was bigger than the one 3 he
attempted.
`"I knew my shot was good all the way,'' he said of the
high-arcing shot. "I felt we handled the pressure well.''
Hill and Spears combined to score 12 straight points for the Red
Storm in the second half.
Wilson Chandler had 15 points for the Blue Demons (9-6), who
went 4-for-15 from the free throw line in the second half after
making nine of 10 in the opening 20 minutes at Madison Square
Garden.
"There's not much I can say,'' DePaul coach Jerry Wainwright
said. "The quality of shots we had and missed is not indicative of
the way we have been playing. It was one of those days and coupled
with what happened at the free throw line in the second half and we
were still gasping, hanging in and then that young man Hill hit a
big-time H-O-R-S-E shot there.''
Despite the poor free throw shooting and tough Red Storm defense
on Mejia, the Blue Demons' leading scorer at 16.1 per game, DePaul
was within 56-52 with 1:20 left on a basket down low by
Chandler.
But Hill hit the 3 to make it a seven-point game and the Red
Storm closed it out by making five free throws over the final 33
seconds.
Mejia, who had 40 points in DePaul's win over Northwestern State
on Friday, had eight points on 3-for-14 shooting. He was covered
for a good part of the game by Anthony Mason Jr.
"We just didn't want him to be able to go one on one and create.
We didn't want him to get any easy looks,'' St. John's coach Norm
Roberts said of Mejia. "We did switch people in him but Mason's
length really helped us on him.''
Spears said defense has been a trademark for this team.
"I thought we stayed focused on defense and didn't break down at
the end,'' he said.
Eugene Lawrence had eight points, eight assists and 14 rebounds
for St. John's, which has won eight of its last nine games.
"They got really good leadership from Eugene,'' Wainwright said
of Lawrence, a 6-1 junior guard. "He held their team down and I
thought he did a really good job of leading.''