There was added intrigue and drama on Saturday night at the Prudential Center as Kadary Richmond made his return to Newark with the St. John’s basketball team, but the records of each team told the story of the game.
The Johnnies (16-3, 7-1 Big East), a squad that will be ranked inside the AP Top-25 on Monday afternoon and sit in first place of the Big East standings, dominated lowly Seton Hall (6-12, 1-6 Big East) which has struggled with nearly every team on its schedule.
Still, Pirate head coach Shaheen Holloway was not pleased with the way his team performed against the Red Storm and did not hold back when meeting the media after the 79-51 beatdown.
“We have to play with some heart,” Holloway said. “We have to play with some fight. I thought we got punked tonight, 100 percent punked.”
As the score would indicate, St. John’s dominated nearly every statistical category in the game, but its defense was the most notable, holding the Pirates to 1-for-21 shooting to begin the game and finishing the first half just 4-for-30.
“We got punked and it was like men amongst boys. We got punked, we got embarrassed.”
The Red Storm led by 23 points at halftime, 39-16, and its advantage grew to as many as 32 points in the closing minutes of the game.
“It’s embarrassing,” Holloway continued. “I feel awful for the program, I feel awful for everything that took place tonight. But this is big boy basketball.”
Only one player on Seton Hall, Isaiah Coleman, reached double figures by scoring 11 points yet did it mostly at the free throw line. Coleman, the leading scorer of the Pirates, was just 1-for-13 from the field and 9-of-10 at the charity stripe.
St. John’s and Seton Hall will cap its regular season series this year on March 1 (2:15 p.m. ET, CBS) inside Carnesecca Arena.