All season, St. John’s had been on the wrong side of games like this one. In all five of their losses, the Red Storm blew a second-half lead. In three of those defeats, St. John’s led by double-digits at one point. But on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, the Johnnies were the comeback kid s. St. John’s rallied back from a 15-point second-half deficit to defeat Seton Hall, 65-60, and extend its season-long winning streak to five games. The decisive surge was a 20-6 run, during which St. John’s (14-5; 7-1 vs. Big East) pulled ahead for good on a Dillon Mitchell lay-up with less than five minutes remaining. “Without question, this is my favorite game of the season,” said Rick Pitino, who picked up the 899th win of his head-coaching career, tying him with Bob Knight for fourth all time. “We’ve played better, but this is my favorite game of the season.” After a hyper-physical first half in which Seton Hall led for more than 18 minutes, the pesky Pirates (14-5; 4-4 vs. Big East) opened the second half on a 9-0 run to take a 47-32 advantage with 16:03 to go. But the game turned from there on the strength of a tenacious St. John’s defense. The Red Storm held Seton Hall without a field goal between the 16:03 and 11:00 marks of the second half and limited the Pirates to 7-of-25 shooting (28.0%) after halftime. St. John’s corralled 13 offensive rebounds in the second half, during which it out-rebounded the Pirates, 27-19, overall. And while St. John’s shot just 30.3% after halftime, it held Seton Hall to only 10 points in the game’s final 11 minutes. “They started imposing their will,” Seton Hall head coach Shaheen Holloway said. It was a far cry from a first half in which the Pirates out-rebounded the Johnnies, 22-14. Despite a distinct size disadvantage, the Pirates came down with 12 offensive rebounds before halftime, leading to 10 second-chance points. “When you’re down 15 to a team like Seton Hall and you’re getting your backs kicked on the offensive glass and you’re in foul trouble, and you come back from 15 down and wind up with 20 offensive rebounds, you really wanted to win this game,” Pitino said. Four of the Red Storm’s offensive rebounds came on a single possession. With 6:29 left in the second half, Mitchell made his first free throw but missed the second. From there, Mitchell, Ruben Prey, Joson Sanon and Dylan Darling each extended the possession before Sanon sank a jumper, cutting the deficit to 53-52. Two possessions later, Mitchell’s go-ahead lay-up put the Red Storm up, 55-54, with 4:53 remaining. St. John’s never trailed again, clinching its biggest come-from-behind win of the season. “It’s just playing as hard as you can,” said Mitchell, who finished with a game-high 17 points and 11 rebounds. “That’s really the main thing. It was nothing special that we did. It was nothing that we drew up. It was just playing hard and getting stops on defense.” Much of the comeback came without star forward Zuby Ejiofor, who repeatedly went to the bench due to foul trouble. That limited Ejiofor to 26 minutes and only nine points with four rebounds — well below his season averages. “I think we discovered that there’s no quit in us,” said Bryce Hopkins, who had 13 points and eight rebounds. After the Big East coaches picked it to finish last in the conference, Seton Hall has been among college basketball’s biggest surprises. Buoyed by a tireless defense — and despite having the Big East’s lowest-scoring offense — Seton Hall started the season 14-2 and earned the No. 25 spot in last week’s AP poll. Last week’s back-to-back home losses dropped the Pirates out of the rankings, however, and they have now dropped three games in a row. Still, Tuesday’s victory served as another statement for St. John’s, which remains undefeated since a wake-up-call loss to lowly Providence on Jan. 3. “In the second half, we just had to stay together,” Mitchell said. “We got a little frustrated, but we stayed together. We locked in on what we had to do. We just went out there and played our hearts out.” ...read more read less