The St. John’s basketball team was hoping that Tuesday night in Queens was a glimpse into the future.
The No. 22 Red Storm were crisp, decisive, and assertive in the opening 15 minutes against DePaul and that’s all it needed to get to the finish line victorious.
After building an 18-point cushion, 37-19, late in the first half St. John’s kept the Blue Demons at an arm’s length away throughout the 79-66 victory behind the resurgence of Dylan Darling.
Darling finished the game with 17 points, six rebounds, and two assists on 5-of-9 shooting – including 4-of-6 makes from 3-point range. It was his highest scoring output of the season after he totaled a combined 15 points in his last six games.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” Rick Pitino said after the game that his team was able to win despite sub-par performances from Zuby Ejiofor, Bryce Hopkins, and Dillon Mitchell.
St. John’s (7-3, 1-0 Big East) also was boosted by 15 points and nine rebounds from Joson Sanon.
“I’ve been just mainly focused on playing hard in practice and finding different ways to score instead of being just an on-ball scorer,” Sanon explained. “Just doing the little stuff that helps the team win.”
The victory marked the third straight game St. John’s defense held its opponent to under 70 points after DePaul (8-4, 0-1 Big East) shot 39.1-percent from the field and 7-for-25 from the 3-point line.
“Certain nights you might not have it, but your defense has got to win it for you, and it did,” Pitino added.
The Red Storm forced misses on 9-of-10 shots that led to a 18-3 run in the first half.
“I thought we played great team defense tonight,” Darling said.
Offensively, St. John’s connected on 44.8-percent of its attempts and 45.5-percent of its 3-pointers in the victory.
Every time DePaul tried to cut into the St. John’s lead, which was dwindled down to seven with 12:52 remaining, it was someone on the second unit who made a big play.
Darling scored five consecutive points to push the lead back to double figures with 12:05 left before back-to-back buckets from Ruben Prey and Dillon Mitchell made the lead 13 points.
St. John’s will travel to Atlanta for its penultimate non-conference game of the season against Kentucky on Saturday afternoon (12:30 p.m. ET, CBS) in the CBS Sports Classic.