HONOLULU - One-and-a-half seconds is all it took to turn a moment of exhilaration and redemption into heartbreak for the St. John's men's basketball team Wednesday. On a night where the Red Storm (4-3) received outstanding leadership from its senior captain, rallied from a nine-point second-half deficit with seven minutes to play, and welcomed two rising stars back into uniform, the Ohio Bobcats (7-3) made the final home-run play of the night to cap a wild finish and take a 71-69 win in the first round of the 44th Annual Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic.

With his team down nine points with 6:56 to play, fourth-year point guard Eugene Lawrence re-entered the game and led the Red Storm to a furious comeback. Lawrence would play all but 32 seconds of the final seven minutes, scoring 11 of his 16 total points in the final 2:07, including the game-tying 3-pointer with 1.5 seconds to play. Lawrence's remarkable effort was only outdone by the Bobcats, whose Bubba Walther fired the ball downcourt to a streaking Leon Williams for the decisive score that beat the buzzer.

"It was a great basketball game, and those things happen and we'll get better from it. We make a great shot to tie it, and then we don't get back in time," said head coach Norm Roberts. "That's the reason we came to this tournament, because it'll make us better. There's no doubt about that."

The Red Storm, which led 28-25 at halftime, needed Lawrence's late-game flurry to battle back in the second period. Ohio's Williams put together an 18-point, five-rebound second half to finish with game-highs of 24 points and 10 boards. After the St. John's defense limited the Bobcats to 30.8 percent shooting from the field in the first stanza, Williams led Ohio to a 57.1 second-half field goal performance and staked OU to its nine-point late-game advantage.

St. John's welcomed Anthony Mason Jr. back to the court on Wednesday. The junior tri-captain, who had been limited to 20 minutes all season due to an ankle injury, contributed 17 minutes with four points, two rebounds and one assist. In an even better comeback story, redshirt-freshman Rob Thomas made his St. John's debut, recording his first collegiate bucket with 6:51 to play in the first half. Thomas' efforts to overcome a difficult childhood on the streets of New York City, dyslexia, partial-partial qualifier status, and "the worse knee injury in the last 27 years of St. John's Athletics" is a source of inspiration for all Red Storm fans.

St. John's moves into the consolation bracket, and will meet the loser of the Hawaii-Louisiana Lafayette game on Friday, Dec. 21, at 11 a.m. HST (4 p.m. EST). Live streaming audio of St. John's Rainbow Classic games, along with daily postcards, photo galleries, journal entries and game reports, will be available online at RedStormSports.com's "Aloha From Hawaii" page.