The heroism of Kadary Richmond allows St. John’s to survive Providence Rally to prolong the sequence of victories

Many times, the coaches and players of St. John’s insisted that they were not worried about Kadary Richmond, even if he was in weeds and had no impact during a largely part of the non-conference season.

Of course, there were brief glimpses when he would take over. Not just.

This patience is bearing fruit.

The transfer of Seton Hall hits its stride at the right time, playing as one of the best players in the country in recent times.

With DeIvon Smith recently, Richmond has taken care of.

And in Smith’s first match on Saturday, Richmond was even better.

He kept St. John’s afloat early, when no one could drop anything, dominated the first part of the second half and sank the winning shot with three seconds to do.

The rider propelled the Johnnies No. 15 to a spectacular victory of 68-66 against Providence before a summit of 19 196 in the garden for their eighth consecutive and 14th victory in 15 trials.

“It was very good. The coaches, my teammates, they believed in me to give me the ball at the end of the match, “said Richmond. “We executed the room and I made a big shot.”

The native of Brooklyn 6 -feet 6 inches filed a career summit of St. John’s 24 points on the shot of 10 for 14 and added eight rebounds, eight assists and three interceptions while St. John’s moved before Marquette classified Ninth at the top of the Grand Est.

Richmond also sank a pair of 3 points while the red storm recovered after blowing an advance of 19 points on the last 8:32.

St. John’s (19-3, 10-1) dragged by seven at the end of the first half, then scored 32 of the following 43 points in the match. Richmond’s 3 -point game with 10:05 remaining pushed the advance to 19.

Then Providence (11-11, 5-6) was heated in red, even pulling at 66 with 32.3 seconds to play on the 3-point pointer from Bensley Joseph.

Richmond then went to work, marking on a traction jumper from the free throw line with three seconds to do. Joseph’s uprising in the horn was out of the brand.

“I think he plays a very good basketball. We were going to win or lose it with Kadary’s shot or his pass, “said coach Rick Pitino. “He made a great shot. He was shooting the ball on the ball. I’m really, really happy for him.

Subsequently, Pitino was furious against the fourth defense of his team in the section, lacking several different players for having left the missed shots or the free throws led to errors on the other side of the ground.

During the last 6:28, Providence reached six points at 3 points.

Even after Richmond’s shooting, St. John’s had a blunder, the brothers failed to exploit.

“Then we almost skipped again, because when Kadary scored, if you looked at the left side, he did not picked up his man,” said Pitino. “We are lucky that they took a half-terrain shot because they could have made a pass on the left side and had a 3.1st chance. We did not do our work on the defensive. ”

RJ Luis added 19 points and eight rebounds and Zuby Ejiofor collected 13 points and five rebounds.

On his return, Smith collected six assists. Jabri Abdur-Rahim had 27 points and eight 3 points in 11 attempts at Providence.

It was a minor miracle that St. John’s led to half time.

The Johnnies achieved a drought of 5:44 in the first half, started the match by pulling 3 for 21 on the field, succeeded only six points in the painting and were bleached in transition during the first 20 minutes.

But they closed half-time, tearing off a 15-4 race to take a 25-21 lead in the break.

Richmond scored five of these points, an overview of the second half to come.

In this sequence of eight consecutive victories, the Richmond that everyone expected showed.

It has an average of 13.7 points, 5.6 assists. 5.2 Rebounds and 2.6 interceptions in this period.

It even shows promising signs beyond the arc, reaching three 3 points in the last two games.

“Just introduce yourself every day, be the same guy, that things go well or are not going well,” said Richmond. “I continued to be who I am and it starts to bear fruit.”

However, he looks like he has still arrived.

“We get there,” said the elder.