Rutgers suffered a double overtime 89-78 preseason road loss to St. John’s in an exhibition benefitting the Dick Vitale Pediatric Cancer Research Fund at the V Foundation. St. John’s took an early lead off an 11-0 scoring run and led 41-23 at the half before the Scarlet Knights came back to force two overtimes. St. John’s finally took the game with a 14-3 run in the second overtime period. Here is a closer look at how it all went down in Queens.

Starting Five

Rutgers went with the young duo of sophomore Derek Simpson and freshman Gavin Griffiths in the backcourt while starting Aundre Hyatt and Oskar Palmquist at forward and Cliff Omoruyi at center. Simpson and Omoruyi were the only two starters from Rutgers’ starting lineup against Hofstra in the final game of last season.

Game Ball

Cliff Omoruyi. Omoruyi started off efficiently on offense, scoring on his first three attempts from the floor and maintaining a strong presence in the paint. Omoruyi had eight points and seven rebounds at the half to lead RU in both categories. Omoruyi would continue that strong presence throughout the rest of the game, finishing with 16 points and nine rebounds on six of 12 shooting.

Stat Leaders

Cliff Omoruyi 16 pts 9 reb 1 blk

Jamichael Davis 16 pts 6 reb 2 ast

Gavin Griffiths 14 pts 5 reb 1 ast

Derek Simpson 9 pts 5 ast 4 reb

Aundre Hyatt 7 pts 4 reb 2 ast

Noah Fernandes 7 pts 3 reb 2 ast

Antwone Woolfolk 4 pts 4 reb 1 ast

Did you notice…

–Rutgers started the game with a Simpson feed to Omoruyi in the low block for a dunk on the Scarlet Knights’ first possession of the game.

-St. John’s went on an early 11-0 run to go up 11-2. During that stretch, Rutgers turned the ball over three times during that stretch, as the Red Storm went heavy with the full-court press in the opening minutes. The run was ended by a strong shot through contact from Griffiths for his first points of the game.

– Davis scored his first points of the game by getting ahead of the pack and throwing down a dunk. Davis used his quickness to get to the rim twice in the first half to go into the break with six points.

-Rutgers attacked the interior early, scoring 14 of its first 15 points from the paint in the opening ten minutes of the game. During that stretch, the Scarlet Knights made seven of 10 field goal attempts from inside the arc.

-St. John’s was able to build a 42-23 halftime lead, ending the first half on a 7-0 run. Rutgers did not score in the last 5:07 of the first half.

-Griffiths got into a shooting rhythm in the second half, as he hit back-to-back threes to help spark a 10-0 Rutgers run to bring the game back to within single digits. Griffiths made three of his first four threes of the second half.

-Rutgers went on a 7-0 run in a two-minute span to take the lead with under four minutes to go – with the go-ahead bucket coming off a reverse layup from Fernandes.

-Simpson scored a layup through contact to get Rutgers back on top 67-66 with 1:21 to play.

-Gavin Griffiths hit a nice floater from the midrange to tie it up at 71 with 2:15 to play.

-Rutgers’ defense holding St. John’s scoreless for nearly four minutes in the first over time period.

-St. John’s ended the game on a 14-3 run in the second overtime period.

Up Next

Rutgers has 16 days left until officially opening the season on Nov. 6 with a neutral-site matchup against Princeton in Trenton, N.J.