The St. John’s basketball team experienced the highs and lows of a new squad during the early season portion of the schedule.
In its 78-63 win over Monmouth on Monday night at Carnesecca Arena, the No. 13 Johnnies (1-0) blitzed the Hawks to open the game. Its pressure defense was suffocating, forcing turnovers that looked like it would force Monmouth to tap out which led to a 26-9 lead after nine minutes.
Then, things got choppy and stagnant. Monmouth, despite continuing to trail by double dights slowed the action down and settled in.
St. John’s transition offense was not nearly as good and after it had 16 points off 11 turnovers in the first half, it was just five points on seven such situations in the second half.
“I just think we lose our concentration,” Quinn Ellis said following the victory about the lapses the team has shown at times.
“I think we look maybe at the scoreboard too much. I just think we got to not worry about the scoreboard, but we just got to worry about playing that consistent, aggressiveness on both ends of the floor and getting the ball moving on the offensive end.”
Ellis finished with eight points, five rebounds, seven assists, and five steals.
For the team, it was a noticeable drop-off from its preseason finale against No. 7 Texas.
“We are just making a lot of mistakes, not from the physical standpoint but more mentally than anything else,” Rick Pitino explained.
“Last year, I made a prediction that we were going to have a great year. I can’t make a prediction with this team because I tell these guys all the time...’Guys, I have nothing to gauge what you’re all about.’”
The Hall of Famer has spoken glowingly about his roster at various points of the preseason and preached patience given the addition of new players to the team and how late the players came together for practice in the fall.
“And that’s the weakness of our basketball program right now,” he added. “I really don’t know what this team is all about yet. I think we have the makings of a really good team, but we have to teach them how to play the game and we didn’t have to teach the team how to play the game last year. And that’s a tough thing to do for 23-year-olds and22-year-olds to teach them how to play the right way.”
Add us as a preferred source on Google