Luke Harangody tries to drive the baseline against St. John's Aaron Spears during the first half.

Irish Edged By Storm At Madison Square Garden

Jan. 23, 2007

Notre Dame at St. John’s Box Score

NEW YORK (AP) -Larry Wright hit a 3-pointer with 9.9 seconds to play to give St. John’s a 71-68 victory over No. 22 Notre Dame on Tuesday night, the Red Storm’s second straight last-minute win at Madison Square Garden.

Lamont Hamilton scored all of his 23 points in the first half for St. John’s (12-8, 3-4 Big East), which beat Syracuse 64-60 on Sunday on two late 3-pointers by Avery Patterson.

Notre Dame (16-4, 4-3) tied the game at 68 with 40 seconds to go on the second of two free throws by Colin Falls. The Red Storm called a timeout with 36 seconds left, and they ran the shot clock down just under 10 seconds before passing the ball to Wright in the right corner. The 6-foot-2 freshman reserve buried his third 3 of the game in four attempts.

Notre Dame rushed the ball down court and Russell Carter’s 3-point attempt from about 28 feet bounced off the rim and the Fighting Irish dropped to 0-3 on the road in the conference.

Carter finished with a career-high 32 points for Notre Dame. He scored all the points in the Irish’s 11-0 run to open the second half that got them a 52-49 lead.

Eugene Lawrence had 13 points and seven assists for St. John’s, which shot 59.3 percent from the field in taking a 49-41 halftime lead. The Red Storm missed their first 10 shots of the second half before Wright, who finished with 11 points, hit a 3-pointer 6:18 in.

Falls had 16 points for Notre Dame but he was 1-for-6 from 3-point range in the second half after going 4-for-6 in the opening 20 minutes.

As Hamilton couldn’t score in the second half, Anthony Mason Jr. scored seven of his nine points in a one-minute span, the last of them was a jumper with 10:07 to play that gave the Red Storm a 61-59 lead.

They held the lead until Falls tied it in the final minute.

The Red Storm’s impressive first-half shooting was surprising considering they came into the game 14th in the 16-team league at 41.8 percent. They finished at 43.9 percent (25-for-57).

Notre Dame came in fourth in the league at 48.6 percent and finished 22-for-62 (35.5 percent).

The two wins came after a four-game losing streak for St. John’s, which next plays at No. 9 Pittsburgh on Saturday.

The Irish lost their previous road games to Georgetown and Villanova.

It was Notre Dame’s first game since finding out that sophomore guard Kyle McAlarney would not be in school for the second semester. He was suspended from playing after his arrest for a marijuana possession charge on Dec. 29. He left school Monday after a ruling from the university.