It was minutes after the St. John’s basketball team completed its second half collapse against Kentucky when Rick Pitino finally admitted his whiff during the offseason at point guard.
The Hall of Famer said the program missed on each of its targets at the position and one of those included current Villanova point guard Acaden Lewis, who is proving to be one of the best lead guards in the conference.
Lewis is averaging 12.6 points, 3.5 rebounds, 5.4 assists, and 1.9 steals per game through 17 contests this season. He’s only struggled shooting the basketball from deep, connecting on just 27.1-percent of his 3-point attempts but is making 48.8-percent from the field.
His assist-to-turnover ratio is 3:1 and has more total assists (91) than anyone on the St. John’s roster. In fact, the top two leaders in assists for the Red Storm, Zuby Ejiofor and Bryce Hopkins, only have three more combined assists (94) than Lewis.
In Big East play, he’s leading the Wildcats in scoring at 14.0 points per game and has recorded at least six assists in each of his last four outings, registering back-to-back games with eight assists.
In comparison, St. John’s has yet to see someone records more than seven assists in a game this season. Last year, the Red Storm had at least one player reach seven or more assists in a game 15 times.
“We lost out on four different big-time point guards that we went after, and we've got to make the best of a situation by collectively other people handling the ball and bringing it up,” Pitino explained after the Johnnies were beaten by Kentucky.
In addition to Ejiofor and Hopkins, St. John’s has put the ball in the hands of Dillon Mitchell much more often as a point-forward with Oziyah Sellers, Ian Jackson, and Dylan Darling also handling the ball in the backcourt.
“We expected Dylan Darling to be a backup, and we lost all of our recruits at that position and gained at other positions. Just got to make the best of it when that happens,” he continued.
Since that game St. John’s has won five of six with an assist-to-turnover ratio of nearly 2:1.
Acaden Lewis originally committed to Kentucky in high school before shaking free in the spring as his recruitment came down to St. John’s or Villanova and the Wildcats are extremely happy that they were able to land him and he is on their side this season.
The winner will at least take control of sole possession of second place in the Big East and remain within striking distance of UConn for the top spot in the conference. Tipoff is at 8:00 p.m. ET (Peacock) inside Xfinity Mobile Arena.