Ask St. John's head coach Kim Barnes Arico, however, and she might tell you it takes a few more.,”

If you've seen any adidas sneaker commercials lately, you've already been told that one great player isn't enough. "Don't be fooled," Gilbert Arenas, Kevin Garnett and other NBA stars tell us in the ads. "It takes five."

Ask St. John's head coach Kim Barnes Arico, however, and she might tell you it takes a few more.

The Red Storm's starting five certainly got the job done Tuesday night, outscoring Marquette's starters 58-48, grabbing eight more rebounds and keeping the Golden Eagles on their heels for much of the first half.

So how did Marquette (21-4, 9-3 Big East) walk away with a double-digit win at the end of the night? The difference came off the bench. Sophomore Kelly Lam scored eight points on 4-of-4 shooting to lead a reserve effort that chipped in 21 points, 16 rebounds, 10 assists and four blocked shots on the night.

On the other side of the scorer's table, meanwhile, St. John's backups tallied no points, rebounds, assists, blocks or steals. Two missed shots, a turnover and a personal foul were the only evidence in the box score that they had been on the court at all. If the officials had dusted the ball for fingerprints, the Red Storm bench might well have gotten away scot-free.

"We came out and we really played hard at the beginning of the game," Arico said. "But they have depth, and we ran out of gas a little bit."

A variety of injuries and the early-season departure of 2005-'06 All-Big East first-team forward Angela Clark for personal reasons have left Arico's lineup tenuously thin for much of the season and consigned her starters to an enormous workload.

Over the past month, the five St. John's players that started Tuesday have averaged 35.0 minutes per game. Kia Wright and Monique McLean, the team's starting guards and two top scorers, have spent a staggering 37.5 minutes on the floor per contest. Both were in for all 40 minutes against Marquette.

That's not heavy playing time; that's indentured servitude.

The Golden Eagles' starters have averaged a more egalitarian 26.1 minutes per game on the year. The bench has been good for a double-double a night, scoring 18 points and hauling in 12 boards.

When senior starter Danielle Kamm was struggling to draw iron from downtown against the Red Storm, sophomore reserve Erin Monfre drilled a pair of threes to keep the first half from slipping away. When the offense sputtered on several early trips down the floor, Monfre, Lam and sophomore Marissa Thrower found their teammates for six second-half assists.

Marquette head coach Terri Mitchell "got in there with a lot of players and tried to keep us fresh," said senior Christina Quaye, whose 22 points on 8-for-12 shooting certainly didn't hurt. "I think we did a good job of pushing it."

Mitchell said the distinction between starters and reserves isn't one her team likes to make.

"We never talk about starters or bench," she said. "We just talk about 10 people doing everything they can."

As Arico can attest, it turns out that five will only get you so far.

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