Over Analysts of St. John’s Exhibition Victory
By Joe Nardone
Defense Optional
I don’t care if it was man-to-man, zone or some form of junk defense. A team that is projected to be a sleeper in the Big East Conference can’t give up 80 points to San Francisco State.
The thing about St. John’s defense that is a little unsettling is the fact that it wasn’t bad because of a lack of effort. It seemed like the guards for SF State were able to penetrate at will and the Red Storm frontcourt did little in the way to employ some quality help defense. Thankfully, hopefully really, it can be assumed that a lot of that will change when Chris Obekpa comes back from suspension.
Even with that, though, St. John’s needs to do a much better job stopping opposing guards from getting to the basket. It just leaves their opponents with too many options afterwards. If you couple St. John’s lack of help defense with their inability to close on shooters, this does not bode well for the Red Storm down the road.
As in, like, their very first game of the year against the Wisconsin Badgers.