It’s been the question of the entire season surrounding the St. John’s basketball team and Rick Pitino has finally admitted the obvious.
After a 78-66 loss to Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta, Pitino was as honest as he has ever been about the Red Storm’s point guard situation.
“I think you can see that Jaland Lowe, him coming in -- we don't have somebody coming in like him,” he explained. “That's our fault as a staff for not having a big time point guard that makes people better.”
Lowe dislocated his right shoulder in October and has been nursing the injury ever since. On Saturday, he appeared to aggravate the injury after being on the court for seven seconds and St. John’s took advantage building a seven-point halftime lead.
The Pittsburgh transfer never returned to the bench until Kentucky took the floor for second half warmups where he was testing the strength of the shoulder. He entered the game with 17:07 left and the Wildcats down six, 37-31, and promptly controlled everything, finishing with 13 points and three rebounds in the comeback win.
It was exactly the style of play that Johnnies need but have yet to get against quality competition.
“I will say that outside of the fact that he never blocks out, Ian Jackson is improving, getting better and better,” Pitino added. “That's not his natural position, but he's doing a good job of getting better.”
Jackson was one of the few St. John’s players that had a quality game with ten points and a team-high six rebounds with two assists and two steals.
“But that's a big factor with us right now, and that's our fault as a staff, not having a big-time physical point guard. It's something that we look at, but we've got to make sure that we do it with other players.”
Dylan Darling struggled to match the size and athleticism of Kentucky, picking up four fouls in 8:42 while Oziyah Sellers could not get open very often, shooting 3-for-8 and only attempting one 3-pointer.
Entering Saturday's game, Zuby Ejiofor, Bryce Hopkins, and Dillon Mitchell led the team in assists per game. Against Kentucky, Mitchell, Sellers, and Ruben Prey were tied for the team-high with three assists each.
Rick Pitino said in the preseason that the point guard position was becoming obsolete in today’s version of the sport.
“That's what you have to do when you don't have one,” he rebuffed in Atlanta. “You make a positive from a negative and say we've got to do it collectively as a team. You want me to just complain and get their confidence down?”
“We don't have it, so we've got to make sure the other guys can bring it up, do the job. That's our fault in recruiting. 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.”
In the offseason St. John’s was directly involved with Silas Demary Jr. and Xaivian Lee in the transfer portal while hosting 4-star high school recruit Acaden Lewis on a visit.
Demary landed at UConn while Lee picked Florida and Lewis committed to Villanova.
“I wasn't saying that it was a rosy painting because of having no point guard. It's just that's what we have to do. So, I'm not going to get negative and just say what we don't have. 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.”
“We got to become much stronger,” Pitino continued. “I can't do anything about the point guard spot, but we've got to do a better job at the backcourt, we can do a better job of executing and blocking out, because we gave up 16 [offensive rebounds].”
For now, it seems like it’ll all rest on the shoulders of Ian Jackson, who has started each of the last three games at point guard for the Red Storm.
“Ian is getting better much, but he refuses to block out, refuses on switches, and that's costing us a little bit but he's getting much better in all the other areas. I think as he keeps improving, if we can get some wins, we'll have ourselves a respectable point guard.”