Exhale.
Deep breaths.
St. John’s toyed with disaster Saturday afternoon.
It danced through the fire and somehow didn’t get burnt.
Daniss Jenkins made sure of that.
The senior point guard was at his best when the Johnnies were on the ropes and hit the game-icing jumper with 24.5 seconds left to preserve an 84-79 victory over Hofstra at UBS Arena on Saturday afternoon.
Jenkins scored 15 points in the final 8:05 and finished with a near triple-double of 21 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.
Jordan Dingle added 15 points, Joel Soriano tallied 14 on what was an off night for the star big man and RJ Luis had 12 points, 10 rebounds and three assists in his first start.
Tyler Thomas led Hofstra with 24 points and six 3-pointers.
St. John’s was without starter Chris Ledlum because of an ankle injury.
The win caps the non-conference slate for St. John’s (9-4), which fell into some bad habits in the victory in terms of turnovers (12), defense (Hofstra shot 49.2 percent from the field) and overall lack of consistent intensity.
It was outscored in the paint, 32-30, by the smaller opponent, apropos of the underwhelming performance.
Soriano’s shaky first half epitomized St. John’s uneven first 20 minutes.
The star big man had three turnovers and fumbled multiple opportunities around the basket.
His teammates weren’t much better in the low-energy half.
St. John’s didn’t play with pace, was even in scoring in the paint against considerably smaller and less athletic Hofstra and didn’t score a single point in transition.
The Johnnies committed seven turnovers, an early-season problem they had recently cleaned up, were outrebounded by one and attempted just four free throws.
St. John’s reeled off the first nine points of the second half and appeared to be in control.
It couldn’t quite run away from Hofstra, however.
The Pride answered by scoring eight of the game’s next nine points and got as close as three with 4:09 left.