The Johnnies overcame injuries and an absent mid-range game to survive an upset attempt by the Pirates
St. John’s fans were reveling in the team’s success this year and making predictions for the upcoming NCAA tournament during a pregame get-together at Stout, a block away from Madison Square Garden. There was a consensus that a game in the Elite 8 was a distinct possibility.
Interestingly, little attention was given to the game with the Seton Hall Pirates that afternoon, with one exception: the availability of forward Aaron Scott due to a recent hamstring injury. Surprisingly, few fans were focused on how successful the team would be in the upcoming Big East Tournament. Primarily, they shifted attention to the NCAAs, which the Red Storm hasn’t reached since 2019 and hasn’t made the main draw since 2015.
The team’s three seniors, Kadary Richmond, Deivon Smith, and Aaron Scott, all started on Saturday and were honored in a pregame Senior Day ceremony before tip-off along with the team’s senior student managers.
First Half
Juniors Zuby Ejiofor and R.J. Luis started alongside the senior trio. Ejiofor won the opening jump, and St. John’s followed by missing two shots within two feet of the basket.
The offensive struggles continued for the next three and a half minutes as the Johnnies committed three turnovers and missed their first nine shots, most of which were close to the basket. The Pirates jumped out to a 6-0 lead in front of a quiet Garden crowd. One fan remarked that a better shooting team than the Pirates would have been ahead by double digits, given the Johnnies’ shooting woes.
Aaron Scott left the game after two minutes of play, clearly struggling with his hamstring injury. He would not return.
After a Red Storm timeout, a Luis dunk, assisted by Sadiku Ibine Ayo, got the Johnnies on the board. At the 13:30 mark, Ayo cut the Pirate lead in half with a three from the left wing assisted by Smith. Ayo demonstrated that he has the offensive skills to pair with his known defensive prowess.
Luis, who would lead the Johnnies in the game with 21 points, hit a three from the top of the key to tie the score at twelve with 12:47 to play.
For the next eight minutes, no team led by more than four points as Seton Hall was penetrating the Johnnies’ paint defense just enough to stay in the game.
Simeon Wilcher drained a 12-foot jumper from the left side, then Kadary Richmond followed with a layup to push the Red Storm lead to five with five minutes to play in the half.
Ex-Red Storm guard Dylan Addae-Wusu worked hard to keep the Pirates in the game. His three-pointer at the 2:44 minute of the half dropped the St. John’s lead to one. An Isaiah Coleman dunk followed it to give Seton Hall a one-point lead with 2:22 to play. It was clear that, despite their poor record, the Pirates would give the Red Storm a battle.
RJ Luis came to the rescue with a three from the right corner after Smith drew the Pirate defense to him as he drove into the paint. Then, with only a second left on the clock, Luis skied high to dunk a Richmond miss into the basket, bringing Red Storm fans to their feet. The Red Storm led at the half by a slim four points, 34-30.
Halftime
Statistics for the half indicated it was a close game. The Pirates held a noticeable edge in shooting, 44 percent to the Red Storm’s 37 percent. The Johnnies were hitting a healthy percentage of threes (37.5%) and were outrebounding the Pirates, particularly on the offensive boards (10-3). Luis led the Johnnies with 14 points.
Second Half
The Pirates rallied, and with the game tied at 36, Zuby Ejiofor made a steal and dribbled down the court in a “roommate” fast break. Passing off to Luis, Luis returned the ball to Ejiofor, who dunked it and put the Johnnies in the lead, 38-36. Forty seconds later, Ayo drove across the key, right to left, and laid the ball in, and the Johnnies led by four.
As he did in the first half, Wusu competed, driving hard to the Red Storm basket, at times making layups and, at other times, drawing fouls. With the Johnnies holding a one-point lead, Richmond saw a wide-open Ruben Prey to the left of the top of the key. Prey did not hesitate and drilled a three-pointer to increase the Red Storm lead to four.
The St. John’s defense tightened, and the Pirates made but five baskets in the last nine minutes of the game.
Unusually, in the second half, both teams scored all but seven points on layups, dunks, and free throws. Seton Hall converted on two jumpers, and St. John’s only had Ruben Prey’s three midway through the half. What decided this game late was foul shooting. St. John’s went a not-so-pretty 14-of-22 (63.6%) from the line, but Seton Hall was worse, making five of twelve attempts at the line (41.6%)
The final score of 71-61 does not reflect the closeness of the game through the first 12 minutes of the second half, when the largest lead by either team during this stretch was four points.
Takeaway #1: St. John’s’ mid-range game disappeared
At the beginning of the game, Seton Hall aggressively pressured the Johnnie ball handlers once they crossed mid-court. It sped the game up as the Red Storm, once breaking through the double team, would aggressively attack and put up rushed shots. After a timeout in the first five minutes of the game, the Red Storm made adjustments, leading to a Luis dunk to break the ice.
Later in the half, the Pirates passed on the double-teaming pressure and sat back to defend the Red Storm from driving to the basket. At times, Smith and Richmond found teammates open, particularly in the corners, for open three-point attempts.
However, the second half was different. The fact that the Red Storm only took hit one mid-range jumper in the second half and four three-pointers, with one successful by Prey, suggests that there were opportunities that the team was overlooking. The Johnnies were dependent on the two-point jump shot in previous games. It was nonexistent against Seton Hall. A review of the game’s film will evaluate whether this should be addressed.
Takeaway #2: Erratic free throw shooting may prove to be a poison
The Johnnies converted 21 of 33 free throw attempts (67%). Give the team some credit. There was a moment in the second half when the conversion rate dropped slightly over 50%. When the game was on the line, the Johnnies did better, hitting 12 of 17 shots, but still not the 75 to 80 percent that is reasonable to expect from this team, who have displayed the ability to hit that percentage of free throws in previous games. In Saturday’s postgame press conference, Coach Pitino made the point that in the NCAA tournament, the games are competitive, and making free throws is often the difference between a win and a loss.
One positive note on a rough day at the line for St. John’s was that Zuby Ejiofor, who often leads the team in free throw attempts, converted seven of his eight tries at the line. However, there is work to be done by other Johnnies: Red Storm backcourt players went five for thirteen.
With one game to play in the next nine days, attention to foul shooting is a necessity.
Takeaway #3: The value of Aaron Scott on defense
The value of having a player on one’s team who can minimize the effectiveness of the opponent’s best player cannot be overstated. That player for St. John’s is Aaron Scott.
Scott was fighting a hamstring pull and only played three minutes. If available, he might have been able to control Dylan Addae-Wusu’s attacks on the Red Storm’s basket, which occurred throughout much of the second half. Scott has quick movement, left to right, and, being six foot seven inches tall, presents an imposing figure for opponents driving to the rim or attempting pull-up jumpers. Deivon Smith was assigned to guard Wusu and did a good job, but Scott, seven inches taller, can truly take away the game of an opponent like Addae-Wusu.
Hopefully, some rest and treatment at the beginning of this week will allow him to rejoin his teammates for the upcoming game with Marquette.
Outlook
Coach Pitino shared during Saturday’s postgame press conference, “When it got to be two games left [to win the Big East title], I noticed something different in this team. For the first time, I could see the pressure on them to win, and I thought it was an awesome thing to witness because we needed that test going into the Big East Tournament as well as the NCAA”. Has the team worked through the pressure to reestablish their past performances’ focused, determined, and confident nature?
Equally important are the injuries members of the team are dwelling with. Will they be close to 100 percent healed when the postseason arrives? The emergence of Sadiku Ibine Ayo as an impactful substitute is a welcome surprise. Ruben Prey and Vince Iwuchukwu have had their moments coming off the bench. Simeon Wilcher has recently struggled, and his over-aggressiveness has led to early foul trouble. The good news is that his jump shot appears to be coming back. The team will need him as they will face back-to-back games in the Big East tournament.
The game on March 8th finds the Johnnies the underdog as they face twentieth-ranked Marquette at Marquette. It is not a “lose and go home” game and, thus, not a pressure game. If fully healed, the Johnnies could add a Quad 1 win to their resume on March 8th.