McClinton leads Miami-FL thru Storm
NEW YORK (AP) The last of Jack McClinton's five 3-pointers had almost everyone at Madison Square Garden asking the same thing: ``How far was that one?''
The Miami guard gave a shooter's answer when he was asked.
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``When you're in the flow of the game, you don't look where you are on the floor,'' said McClinton, whose 41 percent career mark from 3-point range is fourth best all-time in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
For the record, it was from about 26 feet, well behind both the college (20 feet, 9 inches) and NBA lines (23 feet) that are on the Garden court.
Those were the last of McClinton's 20 points and they gave the Hurricanes a 10-point lead on the way to a 70-56 victory over St. John's on Saturday.
McClinton matched his season high with five 3s in only seven attempts and finished with 20 points for the Hurricanes (8-4), who finished with a 46-30 rebound advantage to win for the fourth time in five games.
``They played great today,'' McClinton said before listing every Miami frontcourt player. ``They played so well in the post today.''
Miami, which had 16 offensive rebounds, had five players with either six or seven rebounds, including McClinton with six.
``Our team has been a good rebounding team and that's something we stress,'' Miami coach Frank Haith said. ``All our guys went after the glass and we have to have that to be a good basketball team. It's something we can build on and it has to be a mainstay with our team this year.''
James Dews had seven of his nine points in a 9-0 second-half run that broke the game open. He started it with a 3 and ended it with a jumper that made it 55-39 with 9:35 left.
``That run gave us breathing room,'' Haith said.
Freshman guard Quincy Roberts had a season-high 14 points for the Red Storm (9-3), who lost their second straight game to a current Atlantic Coast Conference team that used to be a member of the Big East. St. John's lost to Virginia Tech last Sunday in the championship game of the Aeropostale Holiday Festival, also at Madison Square Garden.
Roberts started for the first time this season in place of point guard Malik Boothe, who is expected to miss about two weeks after having surgery on his left thumb.
``Confidence is the key,'' Roberts said. ``You have to have a whole lot of confidence, no matter what.''
Justin Burrell, the third-leading scorer and rebounder for St. John's, returned after missing two games because of facial fractures from hitting heads with a teammate in practice. He played with a plastic face mask and had 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting and two rebounds in 21 minutes.
``Nobody's going to feel sorry for us,'' Red Storm coach Norm Roberts said. ``I told the kids that's what we have going on and we have to battle through it. That's it.
``They kind of wore us down and hurt us on the glass. We have to get Burrell back in shape. He only practiced twice. McClinton and Dews, we knew they could shoot and we got to them late and they made the 3s that opened up the game.''
Dwayne Collins added 16 points for Miami, while redshirt freshman center Julian Gamble had 10, one off his total for the season.
``Gamble practiced well the last three days and I told our post guys he earned the minutes with the way he practiced,'' Haith said.
McClinton scored six points as Miami closed the first half on an 11-2 run to go up 38-28. St. John's was within 40-36 as the Hurricanes missed their first nine shots of the second half before McClinton hit the 3-pointers that extended the lead to 10, and St. John's was never closer than seven points the rest of the game.
``That 11-2 run was key to give us momentum into halftime and then we came out and didn't play well the first four minutes of the second half,'' Haith said, ``and that's something we have to fix.''
Paris Horne added 13 points for the Red Storm, despite missing 10 minutes in the second half because of a stomach cramp.
The Hurricanes, who were 17th in the preseason Top 25 and ranked for the first three weeks of the regular season, have lost all their games this season to ranked teams: Connecticut, Ohio State and Clemson.
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