It was the latest tip in the country on New Year’s Eve. It was an easy game to forget and overlook and the St. John’s basketball team wanted to leave its sloppy play in 2025.
After Georgetown shot 48.5-percent from the field and 45.5-percent from 3-point range in the first half, the Johnnies buckled down in the second half and cruised to a 95-83 victory.
The charge was led by Zuby Ejiofor, who said everyone on the team needed to look in the mirror following its second half collapse against Kentucky. The St. John’s captain did his part by finishing with 25 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists.
“It was a beautiful game to watch,” Rick Pitino said after the victory.
Georgetown (9-5, 1-2 Big East) took a seven-point lead, 38-31, with 6:41 remaining in the first half but the Red Storm outscored them 21-9 heading into halftime and built a five-point lead.
“[Coach Pitino] wants us to play with that type of tenacity and energy on defense every time and have a defensive mindset and that’s going to lead to our offense,” Bryce Hopkins explained about the Red Storm’s late first half surge.
The second half started very similarly to the end of the first half with the Johnnies on a 11-5 run as its lead continued to grow to as many as 22 points, 91-69, with 3:24 left in regulation.
“I think the whole team did a great job of staying offensively aggressive,” Pitino added.
St. John’s (9-4, 2-0 Big East) offense looked crisp for most of the night, shooting 50.0-percent from the floor and 55.6-percent from 3-point range (15-for-27). Oziyah Sellers, Ian Jackson, Joson Sanon, and Dylan Darling all finished in double figures and made at least three 3-pointers.
Hopkins, who finished with only eight points, took Rick Pitino’s advice to heart of being more aggressive on the court and made an impact away from the basketball with ten rebounds and six assists. St. John’s outscored Georgetown by 21 points with Hopkins on the floor, the best of anyone on the team.
“He’s becoming everything I hoped he would become,” Pitino explained about his starting power forward.
The victory was important for St. John’s as it started a stretch of three of four games coming away from home and three games in seven days. The Red Storm return to the court on Saturday afternoon (12:00 p.m. ET, FOX) inside Madison Square Garden against Providence (7-6, 0-2 Big East).