The St. John’s basketball team has been a work in progress this season and despite the Johnnies not living up to its preseason Top 5 ranking yet, there is still a lot to look forward to.
The Red Storm are coming off an impressive road victory against Butler following its disappointing showing last week at home against Providence, but it’s been the details of each game that has showed things could be changing.
A decorated transfer portal class got most of the buzz entering the year, but it’s still taken time for those players to learn the style that Rick Pitino wants them to play. It’s not an easy adjustment and in each of the last two games Pitino has used more of his veterans to set an example.
Enough has been said about Zuby Ejiofor, he understands what he needs to do and where he needs to be on every possession. He’s made himself one of the best players in the Big East and the nation with his performance but Ruben Prey and Lefteris Liotopoulos have also come on the scene as of late with important contributions.
Liotopoulos, the sophomore sharpshooter from Greece, has always had a high-upside offensive game but it was his limitations on defense that precluded him from getting legitimate minutes on the court. While the defense is still an issue at times, things began to change when he scored seven points in 13 minutes against Providence and ten points in 18 minutes against Butler, helping St. John’s when they desperately needed it in the first half as the team battled foul trouble.
It was an aggression and confidence from Liotopoulos that has been lacking throughout the team and was reinforced by Prey, who has never expressed a timidness when he’s on the floor.
“They have been under coach’s wing, and they played for coach, so they know what he expects from us,” Bryce Hopkins said after the Red Storm beat Butler. “They definitely help with their experience playing under him and giving us knowledge and stuff like that and telling us what coach expects of us and what the standard is.”
St. John’s needed everything they got from its backup center, scoring ten points and hitting a pair of triples against Butler.
While he only registered one rebound, block, and two steals, he set the tone early in the first half on how St. John’s was going to bounce back from an ugly loss.
“It’s always good to build continuity with players who’s been around the system and understand what it takes to be at a championship level of what Coach Pitino wants,” Zuby Ejiofor explained on Thursday.
The play of Ejiofor, Prey, and Liotopoulos perhaps rubbed off on other players as Bryce Hopkins showed his All-Big East potential during the second half against Butler and the Red Storm are hoping they can keep it rolling against Creighton (10-6, 4-1 Big East) on Saturday afternoon (2:00p.m. ET, FS1) in Omaha.