St. John’s puts on late show after surviving early stage fright

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — There are no asterisks in March. There are no apologies. The only thing that matters is getting the school name on the next line in the next column of the bracket. You do that, you don’t have to explain. You don’t have to justify. Just get🌺 to the next line. Get yourself to Saturday.

St. John’s made it to the next line late Thursday night inside Amica Mutual Pavilion. They dawdled plenty early against Omaha, a mixture of maybe a little nerves, maybe a little stage fright. They recovered. They led by five at the half. By the time the first TV timeout arrived, it was 17. It ended 83-53. It wasn’t always l🐠ovely basketball. The result was. On to t💧he next line.

“Once they come at you,” said Chris Crutchfield, who saw his Mavericks keep it to within two points u🍨ntil just before the half, “they keep coming. And after a while, they were just too much for us.”

We’ve heard that plenty from coaches this year,⛎ inside and outside the Big East, coaches who try to exhort their teams to keep the faith againstꦅ St. John’s, maybe give the bully a taste of its own medicine. Sometimes it works, sometimes even into the second half. Almost always, there is an answer like the one the Johnnies had to start the second half.