Maui Invitational: St. John’s vs. No. 17 Vanderbilt

Wake Forest opened the tournament with a final-seconds win over No. 13 IN, and then lost to No. 19 Vanderbilt IN the semifinals.

Federico Mussini led the Red Storm with 14 points. “I thought that we took care of the basketball”. We all know the Hoosiers are very talented and have scoring on top of scoring, but the Hoosiers have to play with a certain intensity if they’re going to make a Big Ten championship run.

The Cavaliers got a game-high 23 points from senior guard Malcolm Brogdon in a rout of the Mountain Hawks in Charlottesville, Va.

The Red Storm got as close as 76-70 with 1:53 to play on two free throws by Yankuba Sima. Williams drew a foul on the other end, but made only one of his two free throws to tie the game at 78-78 with 13 seconds left. They go because it’s a prestigious tournament with star-studded fields, and to look in the mirror to find out who they truly are, he said. “Luckily I was able to get the tip on the ball and it was a pivotal play”. He also scored 15 of his 22 points in the second half of play. Wake Forest was picked to finish 11 in the ACC preseason poll and UNLV was fourth in the Mountain West’s preseason poll.

IN will play the victor of the Chaminade-UNLV game for fifth place today. While it could have went better, Northwestern keeping pace with North Carolina was definitely the teams best outing so far, especially following an impressive overtime win over Columbia.

IN: St. John’s in consolation round of Maui Invitational on Tuesday.

UF 99, SAVANNAH ST. 34: Ronni Williams and January Miller had 16 points each for the host Gators (2-1), who outscored the Tigers 22-0 in the second quarter.

Halftime-Vanderbilt 43-28. 3-Point Goals-Vanderbilt 7-17 (Baldwin IV 3-4, Toye 1-1, Roberson 1-2, Fisher-Davis 1-2, LaChance 1-3, McGloin 0-1, Justice 0-1, Kornet 0-1, Cressler 0-2), Wake Forest 3-18 (VanHorn 1-2, Mitoglou 1-3, Crawford 1-5, Prendergast 0-1, O’Brien 0-1, Wilbekin 0-6).

Forward Justin Sears led Yale (3-2) with 19 points, and guard Makai Mason scored 13. “We did not guard him well at the last play, on the ball or even with the help”.

Patrick McCaw had 20 points for the Runnin’ Rebels (5-1), who bounced back from their opening loss to UCLA with wins over Chaminade and the Hoosiers (4-2), who leave Hawaii with just one win in three games.

Rice’s backcourt of sophomore Patrick McCaw, senior Ike Nwamu and senior Jerome Seagers combined for 48 points on 17-of-35 shooting, including seven 3-pointers.

Vanderbilt will need everything it can get against Kansas, and that includes bringing another 7-footer off the bench in Josh Henderson, who’s taking advantage of his sixth year of eligibility as a result of two injury-shortened seasons.

If the Johnnies leave their opponent free to launch beyond the arc like they did on Monday against Vanderbilt (the Commodores hit 12 threes), this could easily be another 30-point thumping.