St. John's rallies from 16-down, beats Rutgers 61-59

By foxsports
Published

NEW YORK (AP) Federico Mussini and Yankuba Sima scored 13 points each and St. John's recovered from a 16-point, second-half deficit to beat Rutgers 61-59 on Thursday night.

The Red Storm trailed 45-29 with 14:04 left but rallied and improved to 3-0 under first-year head coach Chris Mullin. Ron Mvouika added 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Mussini's free throws tied it 58-all with 2:31 left, and Mvouika's free throws gave them a 60-59 lead with 1:18 left.

Rutgers (2-1) had possession in the final 15.9 seconds, still trailing by 1. But Bishop Daniels lost control near midcourt after getting bumped by Felix Balamou. Rutgers' Corey Sanders recovered but tripped and turned it over to Christian Jones, who drew the foul. Jones made 1 of 2 free throws.

Daniels made a 3-pointer that was waived for coming after the buzzer. Daniels had 21 points and Mike Williams added 13.