St. John's starts slow, then roars past Harvard

Ian Jackson, Bryce Hopkins and Zuby Ejiofor scored 14 points apiece as St. John's shook off a slow start to pull away for an 85-59 victory over Harvard on Tuesday night in New York in its first game as an unranked team this season.

The trio scored in a variety of ways for the Red Storm (8-4), who used a massive run at the end of the first half to improve to 5-0 against non-high-majors and rebounded from Saturday's 78-66 loss to Kentucky in Atlanta.

Jackson hit four 3s with eight of his nine shots coming from behind the arc. Hopkins scored on an array of inside attempts and made 6 of 12 shots to go along with four assists.

Ejiofor made 4 of 8 shots and finished with nine rebounds to narrowly miss his second double-double this season and help the Red Storm to a 39-22 edge on the glass.

Joson Sanon added 10 for the Red Storm, who shot 50% after shooting a season-worst 33.3% Saturday.

Chandler Pigge led Harvard (6-7) with 13 points and Robert Hinton contributed 10 of his 12 points in the first half.

Harvard made its first six shots but shot 8 of 25 in the second half and finished at 43.4% overall. The Crimson also misfired on 16 of 20 3s in their sixth loss in eight games.

After St. John's took its first lead, Harvard took a trio of five-point leads on a foul line jumper by Austin Hunt with 9:28 left, a spinning layup by Pigge nearly two minutes later and a layup by Thomas Batties II with 6:37 to play.

St. John's scored 10 straight points and took a 36-31 lead on a putback by Hopkins with 4:27 left. That basket was part of a 20-2 burst over the final 6 1/2 minutes to give the Red Storm a 46-33 halftime lead.

The Red Storm took their first 20-point lead when Jackson sank two free throws three minutes into the second half. Dylan Darling's 3-pointer pushed the lead to 64-44 with 12:57 left, then the Red Storm opened a 72-46 lead on Sanon's three-point play with about 10 minutes left.

--Field Level Media