The St. John’s basketball team landed a comfortable victory on opening night at home against Monmouth but there are still several takeaways that fans would have to dig a little big deeper to find.
Quinn Ellis and Keyshawn Hall were terrific in the game as Ellis controlled things at point guard with eight points, five rebounds, seven assists, and five steals while Hall was a dominant scorer with 26 points and doing it from all three phases.
However, there will be a lot to clean up for the No. 13 Red Storm (1-0) entering its second game of the season on Sunday afternoon (12:00 p.m. ET, Peacock) against Iona (1-0) inside Madison Square Garden.
We look at some of the key takeaways from a win in the season opener for St. John’s against the Hawks.
Tounde Yessoufou
One of the prized additions of the St. John’s offseason, Tounde Yessoufou, came off the bench on Monday night, in a major surprise.
Yessoufou did not start the team’s second exhibition game against Rutgers as Rick Pitino was experimenting with rotations and lineups, but the Hall of Famer revealed that the reason he kept the All-American candidate on the bench to begin the game against Monmouth was due to missing two practices with a minor calf injury.
He still played 22 minutes in the victory, but his stats were padded the final four minutes of the game, when the outcome was already decided. He scored five of his 12 points during that span, shooting 3-for-8 from the field in the win.
Yet Tounde Yessoufou did not have the same success, tenacity, or explosion like he did during the 24-point performance against Texas in the final game of the preseason. Perhaps the calf injury slowed him down, but St. John’s will need its star to find his form before the team hits Las Vegas at the end of the month.
Ian Jackson
Quinn Ellis is the key to the St. John’s offense, but things just look better when Ian Jackson is on the floor and it proved itself on Monday evening.
Jackson was limited in the first half due to foul trouble, sitting for the final 8:17. It was nearly the same moment in the game in which the Red Storm offense started to get stagnant.
He started the second half like a rocket, making his first three shots and scoring seven points in three and a half minutes. Jackson scored 13 of his 15 points in the second half as he was limited to 22 minutes due to continued foul trouble.
Ian Jackson looked just as confident in the exhibition matchup against Texas and, similarly, the St. John’s offense did not look as prolific when he sat in that game as well.
It’s a new Ian Jackson for St. John’s this season and the Red Storm need him to be on the court – and not in foul trouble – as much as possible.
Theo Edema, Babacar Sane, & Zsombor Maronka
Rick Pitino always keeps things interesting, and he did it again when he started Zsombor Maronka on opening night after not playing in the Texas game and he did not play freshman Theo Edema following his strong performance against the Longhorns.
Pitino said after the game that he did not play Edema because he knows what he has in the 7-footer and wanted to get a deeper look at other players like Maronka and Babacar Sane.
Maronka did not take advantage of the opportunity he was given, going scoreless in 14 minutes with only two rebounds while Sane, at times, looked frantic on the court in the first half before flashing his athleticism in his only second half minutes – the final 2:25 of the game.
St. John’s is already dealing with early season struggles from starting center Ruben Prey and Reed Bailey can only do so much for the team, so it’s imperative for the Red Storm to get production in its frontcourt and it’ll be up to this trio to try and make a positive impact when they step on the floor.
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