Seton Hall takes down St. John’s in OT in Big East Tournament quarterfinal

Five Big East Tournament games in, and we continue to have chaos.

Seton Hall became the latest troublemaker on Thursday afternoon. New York has become ‘Upset City,’ as the 5-seeded Pirates defeated the 4-seeded St. John’s Red Storm 77-69 in OT. While they were favored in Vegas, this keeps up a trend where four of the five Big East Tourney games have been won by lower seeds. Georgetown was the 8-seed in their matchup with Marquette, but the Golden Eagles were favored. So havoc continues to be wreaked.

The game was very competitive throughout. The Red Storm had trailed by nine points with 5:36 to play in the first half. But they spurred a run and got the lead, but would give it back to be down by one. Seton Hall took control and led by seven points with 9:48 remaining. But the Red Storm would regain the lead after a 9-0 run. The teams traded blows, and 40 minutes weren’t enough to decide this.

St. John’s was perhaps gassed, as they could never gain a lead in the OT period. The Pirates sent the Johnnies off the ship, pushing the lead to as many as the 8-point margin of victory. And five game minutes later, the Pirates celebrated victory.

Sandro Mamukelashvili scored a game-high 20 points and grabbed 11 rebounds too. Mamu was joined in double figures by Jared Rhoden (19) and Myles Cale (16). Rhoden also had a double-double, hauling in a prodigious 16 rebounds. No other Pirate scored more than seven points on the day.

Julian Champagnie, Rasheem Dunn, Greg Williams Jr., and Marcellus Earlington were in double figures. Champagnie led with 16 points, followed by Dunn’s 15. Rounding things out were Earlington and Williams, who scored 12 apiece. Champagnie also led with nine rebounds, which were followed up by Earlington’s seven.

Seton Hall is now 40 minutes away from playing for a Big East Championship. In order to get to Saturday, they must defeat the 8-seeded Georgetown Hoyas on Friday.