The St. John’s basketball team found itself in a major groove over its last four games entering Tuesday’s matchup with Seton Hall.
Its offense had been humming, and its defense was improving. It looked like the Red Storm were rounding into form right as the heart of conference season approached.
Then, the tenacious defense of Seton Hall met the Johnnies, and it threw them for a loop. The Red Storm looked a step slow for the first 24 minutes, trailing by six points at halftime and seeing that deficit ballon to 15 points early in the second half.
The Pirates took the fight right to St. John’s inside of Madison Square Garden, watching the Red Storm miss its first six shots of the second half. It looked like it was going to be a lost night for the Johnnies until they dug in and showed some grit.
The shooting remained a struggle in the second half, making just 10-of-33 shots, but the team flashed its heart and desire to win, 65-60, which hasn’t always been on display when they have trailed in the second half.
In fact, Tuesday was just the second time all season the Red Storm have won a game when it trailed at any point in the second half. The only other victory came on the road against Butler when the Bulldogs took a two-point lead on the first possession of the second half but never led after that moment.
Rick Pitino told his team during its early January matchup against Providence that it needed to win with its defense since its offense was struggling to score, and the Johnnies couldn’t heed the advice of its head coach and committed too many mistakes on that end of the floor late, which ultimately led to a loss.
However, on this night, his message during the game was similar yet the outcome was quite different.
“I told the guys, you get down 15 [points], I said, ‘Look, if we’re going to win this game, you’re going to have to play every single possession as if you’re down three [points] and 3-point shot is coming or you’re down two [points] and the 2-point shot is coming without an offensive rebound,’” he explained.
From that point, the Red Storm showed a tremendous amount of growth and improvement and were nearly perfect defensively holding Seton Hall to just one made shot over a 9:35 stretch in the final ten minutes.
It proved, like last year, this team can win in multiple ways. It can win with offense and, more importantly, it can win a defensive slugfest.
It’s just the second time this season St. John’s has won a game scoring 75 points or less. The Johnnies had been 1-3 in such games with the only other win coming against Ole Miss, 63-58, in early December.
Riding a five-game winning streak, St. John’s will look to carry its momentum into Saturday’s road matchup against Xavier (11-7, 3-4 Big East) who is averaging 77.4 points per game.