St. John's Deivon Smith sits, Jaiden Glover steps up in win over Harvard
RJ Luis Jr. #12 of St. John's, left, grabs a rebound during the first half of an NCAA Division I men's basketball game against Harvard at Carnesecca Arena in Jamaica on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. Credit: James Escher
Deivon Smith didn’t get a minute of playing time for St. John’s on Saturday and that created enough for Red Storm freshman Jaiden Glover to leave an impression.
Rick Pitino said on Friday that there would be consequences for Smith’s actions last Sunday when the Storm suffered a three-point loss to unranked Georgia in the final game of the their trip to the Bahamas. The guard reacted badly to being benched in the second half, didn’t play in the final 13:18 and Pitino said the conduct issue continued after the game.
With Smith, one of the three guards in the regular rotation on the bench, Glover — who is from Brooklyn — got to fill the void created and came through with a career-high 11 points and three assists in the 77-64 non-conference victory before an announced sellout crowd of 5,602 at Carnesecca Arena.
St. John’s (6-2) had an 18 point lead early in the second half and Harvard kept chipping away. It got to within eight points twice before RJ Luis Jr. and Kadary Richmond delivered the Storm from danger. The two of them combined for all eight points in an 8-3 run to restore the lead to 73-60 and St. John’s held on from there.
Luis had 24 points, 10 rebounds and four assists and Richmond had 18 points, eight rebounds and four assists to lead the Storm. Simeon Wilcher added 12 points for St. John’s. Chandler Pigge had 15 points for the Crimson (2-6).
Pitino went with a starting lineup of Luis, Richmond, Simeon Wilcher, Zuby Ejiofor and Aaron Scott. He also substituted liberally in those first 20 minutes, giving the fans a chance to see some players who don’t get many minutes and some unusual lineups. Only eight minutes into the game, the Red Storm had deployed 10 different players, but Smith had not removed the jersey of his warm-ups.
Glover came off the bench 6:03 into the game and played 8:30 before halftime and scored 11 points on 4-for-7 including three three-pointers. The third of those came at the buzzer and gave St. John’s a 40-28 lead at the intermission.
He got into the box score by finding Ejiofor in the paint for a bucket with 9:10 in the half and then made three-pointers on the next two St. John’s possessions.
Glover was a highly-sought recruit out of The Patrick School (N.J.), where he played two seasons after transferring from Roselle Catholic (N.J.) where he was teammates with Wilcher.
His first-half performance got him 10 more minutes after halftime, though he didn’t score.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
