Health & Fitness
Upset-Minded Red Storm Dropped by #2 Syracuse
St. John's loses big against #2 Syracuse
Fab Melo was missed greatly by the Orange. He really made a statement in his return and also helped Jim Boeheim reach an historic milestone as the Cuse knocked off St. John’s in a blowout, 95-70 at the Garden.
Melo scored a career-high 14 points for #2 Syracuse after missing three games due to academic reasons and Boeheim tied the legendary Dean Smith for third place all-time on the career victories list with win no. 879.
"I had fun. It felt good to be back on the court with my teammates," Melo said. "I felt a little rusty and I wanted to do everything at once but Coach told me to slow down and I did."
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Syracuse (23-1, 10-1 Big East) made sure that the Red Storm were never able to threaten an upset as they ran all over them in the first half. After already leading by a score of 41-27 at halftime, the Cuse spurted off a 16-3 run to open the second half. Even though this was a home game for St. Johns (10-13, 4-7 Big East), most of the crowd was able to go home happy since the majority of the fans were in orange attire.
Dion Waiters and C.J. Fair each had 14 points to help out Melo with the scoring. Syracuse as a whole had a solid game on offense as they shot 55.7% from the field for the game.
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The one bright spot for St. John’s in this one was D’Angelo Harrison, who scored 23 points. Moe Harkless and Phil Greene added 15 and 14, respectively. The Johnnie’s are now 0-9 against ranked opponents this season. Last season, the Red Storm used to be the team that ranked teams feared as they tallied four wins against teams in the top-10.
This game actually marks the Red Storm’s worst loss of the season and now has dropped 6 of eight at Madison Square Garden.
As for Boeheim, he now only trails fellow Hall of Famers Mike Krzyzewski (919) and Bob Knight (902) on the career wins list. He’ll attempt to break his current tie with Dean Smith in Syracuse’s next contest, which is on Feb. 8 against #14 Georgetown. St. John’s will look to avenge this loss on Wednesday as well, when they host Cincinnati. St. John’s defeated the Bearcats on Jan. 7, 57-55.
