NEW YORK — With the UCLA men’s basketball team’s hopes to make a comeback hanging on a rebound, a St. John’s true freshman found the ball when a UCLA senior could not.

Jerime Anderson watched the ball as Phil Greene skid from the weak side to tap in the miss, which sealed up the 66-63 win for the Red Storm (11-16). The teams’ nonconference matchup Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden was full of moments just like that, demonstrating the younger squad’s hustle trumping the taller and tested Bruins (15-12).

“They had the sense of urgency to go and get the rebound, and they made it happen,” sophomore guard Tyler Lamb said. “They made that win happen.”

St. John’s played just six men in its rotation, composed of five true freshmen and one junior transfer. The Red Storm sat third to last in the Big East conference standings. Plus, it was coming off a four-game losing streak, each by double figures.

All of that was hardly discernible.

“They played very inspired,” Anderson said. “They played like they’ve had a tough time the last few games and they really wanted to come out and get the win.”

The game, played as a part of a home-and-home series that started with UCLA’s 66-59 win at Pauley Pavilion last season, was a back-and-forth affair that neither team could fully grasp control of.

But plenty of overwhelmingly lopsided statistics negated any advantage UCLA could have had.

The Bruins had 16 turnovers, eight charged to Lamb, who led UCLA with 18 points.

St. John’s also grabbed 19 offensive rebounds and ended up with 26 second-chance points.

On one sequence, Sir’Dominic Pointer was able to grab his own miss for an offensive board – while sitting firmly on his rear 10 feet away from the basket. It saved a possession, which ended with Pointer slamming down a tip-dunk with one hand.

That was two of 34 points in the paint, all by a team UCLA players said played a “five-guard lineup.” St. John’s didn’t play a player taller than 6 feet 8 inches against a host of Bruins that stand 6 feet 10 inches.

“We held them to 37 percent (shooting) but we got hurt on the second shots,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “There was at least three times tonight where they air balled a shot and got it back and scored. Three different times where it was an air ball that we were either slow to rebound or they somehow got to it and put it back in.”

The scrappy, youthful St. John’s squad didn’t have the services of its coach, former UCLA skipper Steve Lavin, still on the mend from prostate cancer surgery.

Lavin watched from a box seat, telling CBS: “Coaches have different styles and I’m pretty active along the sidelines, so it wouldn’t be fair to the kids for me to ask them to give 100 percent if I’m not capable.”

He watched his team give plenty of effort, while the Bruins left for a cross-country flight wondering if they had given theirs.

“I’m not sure if we were outhustled – we just didn’t play our style of basketball,” redshirt sophomore forward David Wear said. “We fed into their style.”