A week off might have done some damage to the timing and rhythm of the St. John’s basketball team but once the No. 22 Johnnies got rolling, they were no match for Iona on Saturday afternoon inside Madison Square Garden.
After a troubling 2-for-15 shooting start, which saw 11 consecutive missed attempts, the Red Storm would make 6-of-8 attempts and use a 29-8 run to turn an 8-point deficit into a 12-point lead.
The Gaels (8-4) would make one last push to cut into the St. John’s 10-point halftime lead and trimmed the margin to four on two separate occasions, but the Johnnies responded with an 18-2 run to put the game away and lead by 20, 66-46.
It all resulted in a 91-64 victory that began a crucial stretch of four games in ten days for the Red Storm.
"We had some difficulties with turnovers, but outside of that we played a real good game," Rick Pitino said.
St. John’s (6-3) second half surge was led by Oziyah Sellers, who missed both of his 3-point attempts in the first half before hitting 4-of-5 from beyond the arc following halftime.
The sharpshooter had 16 points in the second half and finished with a team-high 19 points.
In addition to the 55-point outburst in the second half, St. John’s defense continued to stiffen behind Zuby Ejiofor’s eight blocks. It was his second straight games with eight blocks, becoming the first player in program history to reach the mark since Chris Obepka in 2013.
Ejiofor also finished with six points and ten rebounds as six different players scored at least 10 points for the Johnnies.
St. John’s shot 51.7-percent from the field in the victory and connected on 38.5-percent of its attempts from 3-point range. Following its bad start, the Johnnies made 65.1-percent
St. John’s begins Big East play on Tuesday night (7:00 p.m. ET, Peacock) at Carnesecca Arena against DePaul (8-3).