St. John's basketball drops finale in Bahamas behind lackluster offensive performance

The St. John’s basketball team felt good about itself following two games in the Bahamas despite losing its first contest on a double overtime buzzer beater.

It got the bad taste out of its mouth with a 25-point victory over Virginia and had hopes of putting an exclamation point on its weekend with a Sunday morning matchup against Georgia, but instead it created more disappointment in a 66-63 loss.

It was noticeable early that the Johnnies did not have its legs underneath them, scoring just 28 points in the first half on 7-of-23 shooting and missing all nine of its 3-point attempts. Things did not get much better in the second half offensively.

“They just wanted it more than us,” Aaron Scott said of the team’s first half struggles. “They out-physicaled us. They were to every loose ball, every rebound, it just felt like they wanted it more than us.”

“I felt like we didn’t come out and compete.”

After Georgia built a nine-point lead in the opening minutes of the second half, St. John’s began its rally with a 19-7 run to take its first lead, 47-44, since early in the first half.

The Johnnies were poised to take a two score lead after Simeon Wilcher forced a jump ball that gave the Storm possession but a poor pass from Kadary Richmond at halfcourt lead to an easy layup for the Bulldogs and jumpstarted a 10-0 run.

“He’s getting one or two of those per game,” Rick Pitino said about Richmond’s giveaways. “It makes no sense for a great player that that happens…he knows it though, he owns up to it.”

Richmond finished with just three points on 1-of-8 shooting and is now 7-for-17 from the free throw line this year.

However, St. John’s would again respond. This time it was a 7-0 run that tied the game at 54 but six consecutive missed shots were the roadblock between taking a lead.

After the charity strip cost St. John’s a victory over No. 13 Baylor, it was the reason it stayed in the game on Sunday after three straight makes put the Red Storm back in front, 57-56, but the team still couldn’t make a field goal.

Five straight Georgia points had the Bulldogs up by four, 61-57, with 1:03 left and St. John’s could never regain the lead.

Its last hope came in the final seconds after Wilcher tapped in a missed layup for St. John’s first basket in over five minutes and cut its deficit to two, 62-60. The Red Storm forced a turnover on the inbounds play, but Wilcher dribbled the ball out of bounds after gaining possession.

RJ Luis had the ball knocked away from behind as he tried to rush the length of the court to find a game tying 3-point shot.

The Red Storm shot a combined 28-for-48 from 3-point range in its two games at Baha Mar before its 2-for-19 showing in Atlantis.

“I don’t have a crystal ball, I can’t say that,” Pitino explained on if the poor shooting numbers were due to his team playing three games in four days. “[Georgia] played back-to-back [games] and their shots went in.”

St. John’s forced 24 turnovers from Georgia and drew 24 fouls. The Bulldogs had three players foul out, including freshman star Asa Newell who had 18 points when he departed with 3:06 remaining.

Zuby Ejiofor led the Red Storm with 22 points on 12-of-13 shooting from the free throw line while Deivon Smith did not play the final 13:18 after accumulating four points on 1-of-7 attempts. Smith looked like he was laboring on the court but Pitino said the guard is not injured, rather he wanted more shooting on the floor.

The Johnnies (5-2), now with no margin for error in the rest of its non-conference games, will return to action on Saturday, November 30 against Harvard (5:00 p.m. ET, Peacock).