KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Maryland was bounced out of the NCAA tournament last night, and its exit was not pretty.

The Terps earned a No. 2 seed in the South Regional on the basis of their ability to defend and score points in bunches, but they were the ones that got dumped under a run. St. John's scored 23 straight points during a nine-minute stretch in their regional semifinal and went on to a 76-62 victory at Thompson-Boling Arena.

The third-seeded Red Storm will meet No. 4 seed Ohio State in tomorrow's South championship game, with the winner moving on to the Final Four.

Maryland headed home with a 28-6 record, the most wins in school history, but its last experience was the pain of its worst offensive performance of the season. The game was even for the first 12 minutes, but then the Terps became clueless against a St. John's zone, going nearly 11 minutes without a point.

"I just don't know where something like that came from tonight," coach Gary Williams said. "We went away from playing the way we had to get 28 wins. We've been a pretty consistent offensive team, getting the ball inside first before we take outside shots, and tonight we didn't do that."

The Sweet 16 again turned sour for Maryland and Williams, who is 0-6 at that level. He was denied his 400th win, and the program lost its seventh straight regional semifinal. Maryland last went to a regional final in 1975.

St. John's (28-8) built a 56-30 bulge before Maryland put up a belated 19-2 run and cut the deficit to 58-49. The Terps had two chances to cut it to seven points, but Laron Profit missed a jumper at the foul line, then saw his outlet pass to Steve Francis go out of bounds.

Williams could be heard using the word "embarrassment" as St. John's scored the last 20 points of the first half. His team's collapse had its roots in an inability to get anything out of its vaunted pressure defense.

Maryland took too many outside shots, not a good idea on a night when it would have had trouble putting the ball in the Tennessee River that flows by the arena. Two days ago, St. John's forward Ron Artest said he had never seen Maryland "play a solid half-court game," and his opinion didn't change.

The Terps made 35 percent of their field-goal attempts, their second-worst shooting game of the season. Their 19 points in the first 20 minutes were a season low for a half, and the total of 62 points matched their season low.

"In transition, we were very sloppy," Williams said. "We were mechanical, with no flow. In the half-court, we settled for the first semi-open shot. We weren't shooting the ball well, and we paid for it."

Maryland was simply a mess at the offensive end, going 20 minutes without a point from Francis and Terence Morris, its all-Atlantic Coast Conference first-team selections. Francis was seldom under control and got his third foul before he got his third point. Morris made just three of his 10 shots.

"We kind of played soft," Morris said. "We just couldn't get anything going out there. They just pushed us away from the basket."

Francis and Morris did not suffer alone. Profit and fellow senior Terrell Stokes both threw up air balls on three-pointers. The Terps tossed lob passes behind cutters, needed timeouts to inbound the ball, couldn't handle St. John's traps and were intimidated by Artest.

The sophomore forward scored only eight points, but he blocked six shots and showed no ill effects of a queasy Tuesday night.

It was the premier game in the Sweet 16, the only one that matched two Top 10 teams, but No. 5 Maryland did not fulfill its end.

Points weren't easy to come by at the start, but Maryland was able to take a 19-18 lead on a pull-up jumper by Profit with 8: 26 left in the half. The Terps, however, then lost their way against a zone, primarily a 2-3, that was Indiana's undoing against St. John's in the second round.

The collapse began when 7-foot sophomore center Mike Mardesich, in for foul-hampered Lonny Baxter, missed an easy attempt off a pass from Francis. It was the first of 10 straight missed shots by Maryland, one of the few teams in the nation to make better than 50 percent of its shots this season.

St. John's got a big game from its first-year backcourt. Freshman point Erick Barkley scored 24 and Dunbar High grad Bootsy Thornton had 17. Thornton, who won his matchup with Francis, took a pass from Artest and gave St. John's a 20-19 lead, and the Red Storm never looked back.

Artest blocked a Francis jump shot, Thornton scored in transition and Williams took a 20-second timeout, livid with his players. The respite didn't do them any good. Profit walked, then missed from the right wing. Another Mardesich miss was turned into a transition dunk by Artest, and it quickly unraveled for the Terps.

Barkley frustrated Francis in the open court on several possessions. Francis missed a transition chance in the 10th minute, and St. John's got a three-point play at the other end. On Maryland's last possession of the half, Barkley drew an offensive foul from Francis, who made just five of his 13 shots and finished with 13 points, the only Terp in double figures.

It was the last Maryland game for Profit and Stokes, and it might be for Francis, who again denied persistent rumors that this will be his only season with the Terps. It was the quickest, most talented team Williams has had at Maryland, which won nine of 10 after an injury ended the collegiate career of Obinna Ekezie, another senior.

"We're very disappointed," Morris said. "We thought we'd be better than the Sweet 16 this year. That wasn't good enough for us. We thought we'd get past that, but we didn't."

A dry run

Maryland's road to St. Petersburg turned sour in the final 8: 24 of the first half after a Laron Profit field goal gave the Terps a 19-18 lead. The ugly numbers in a 20-0 first-half closing run by St. John's:

0-for-10

What Terps shot in final 8: 24 of half.

3

Shots blocked by St. John's and turnovers committed by Maryland.

6

Fouls committed by Terps, including two offensive in the final 1: 01.

Pub Date: 3/19/99