Rick Pitino knows as well as anybody how important Tuesday night (6:30 p.m. ET, Peacock) is for the St. John’s basketball team against Marquette.
In fact, he admitted on Monday afternoon that this game is more important than its bout with No. 3 UConn in three weeks because the Red Storm cannot afford to have another Quad 3 loss on its resume after dropping a game two weeks ago at home to Providence.
“Marquette is much more important than UConn,” he said. “Not in your eyes, but in our eyes…and Marquette had Villanova beat the other day. Marquette beat Xavier, Xavier beat Providence, so we just got to understand how important [this game is].”
It has been a struggle for the Golden Eagles (6-11, 1-5 Big East) this season after not utilizing the transfer portal. It’s only win over a power conference team was its one-point victory at home against Xavier on Wednesday and its late game offense has been excruciating to watch.
Zaide Lowery, who was thought to be a promising player on the team entering the season, was dismissed from the program in late December and other role players from a year ago have not developed like head coach Shaka Smart envisioned.
Still, the Red Storm cannot let its guard down after its gutsy 2-0 week on the road against Butler and Creighton.
“I think it’s imperative that we approach every game the same and treat every opponent like they could beat us,” Zuby Ejiofor explained on Monday. “Losing is not a standard that we want to build here at St. John’s.”
St. John’s (11-5, 4-1 Big East) did not appear in the AP Top 25 Poll this week after its two victories and only earned a single vote to be included in the rankings, but its predictive metrics remain strong at No. 26 in the NET, with a 4-4 record in Quad 1 and Quad 2 games, and No. 18 in KenPom.
“Each and every opportunity in the locker room or even during the game, during the timeouts, we’re telling each other ‘We’re not losing this game, we’re not losing this game,’” Ejiofor continued.
“Because we’re all winners in some aspect. We all came here for a reason, obviously we’re chasing a goal collectively, but like I said we’re going to take it one game at a time and just be the best version of ourselves each and every day.”
The Johnnies committed only 11 combined turnovers in its two victories last week and have seen a lot of improvement at point guard between Ian Jackson and Dylan Darling while Dillon Mitchell has also become a major ball-handler as a point-forward.
“Once we get Ian [Jackson] and Joson [Sanon] to value the basketball the same way some of the veterans do, we’re going to have a hell of a team,” Pitino added.
“I really want to see how we handle the ball against this defense…This is a big test for Ian in this game. His judgment is going to have to be really perfect in this game.”
St. John’s will be looking to put away Marquette early and turn its attention towards another massive road game on Saturday night in Philadelphia against Villanova.