St. John's struggles in exhibition loss to Division II Pace
St. John's Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino directs his players during the second half of an NCAA men's basketball exhibition game against Pace at Carnesecca Arena on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
St. John’s final run-through before its season opener left only questions about whether it is ready.
The Red Storm played an exhibition game against Division II Pace and did not look good. They shot poorly, struggled to defend and got outrebounded and outhustled. The Setters never trailed and held off a late St. John’s comeback for a 63-59 victory at Carnesecca Arena.
The Red Storm, who hadn’t lost an exhibition game since Chris Mullin’s catastrophic debut against St. Thomas Aquinas in 2015, used only nine players because of injuries to Joel Soriano, RJ Luis and Jordan Dingle. Nevertheless, shooting 26% from the floor, 22% on three-pointers and 67% on free throws and getting outrebounded by 11 was hard on the eyes. St. John’s missed 13 layups.
St. John’s trailed by 13 with less than four minutes to play before Nahiem Alleyne scored eight of his 22 points, including a three-pointer that got the Red Storm within four with 18 seconds left.
“I'm glad we did not come back against them because they deserved this victory and we did not,” St. John's coach Rick Pitino said. “A much smaller team just dominated us on the backboard, and that can’t be. If I asked for anything for a Christmas present, it was this loss. Because Stony Brook . . . will come in and take us to the woodshed if we rebound like that.
“We learned a lot about where we need to work tonight, and that’s what exhibition games are for.”
Asked what he had hoped to see from his team, Pitino said “improvement” from the Red Storm's play in the double-overtime exhibition win over Rutgers.
If one is looking for a bright spot, it would be Alleyne. St. John’s outscored Pace by seven points during his 28 minutes and Pitino said he has earned a spot in the starting lineup for the opener. Pitino said Soriano (out Sunday with a mild calf strain), Daniss Jenkins and Chris Ledlum will join him in the starting lineup. He said he remains undecided about who will be the small forward.
Pitino couldn’t give a timetable for the return of Dingle, who has been out for a couple of weeks with a shoulder injury. He did say that team medical personnel told him the injury is “mild.”
Pace, which has been to two straight NCAA Division II Tournaments, got 22 points from Bryan Powell and 14 from Jamaal Waters. Tray Alexander, from Freeport and Friends Academy, led the Setters in assists with four.
Pitino said Pace “deserved the victory from the opening tip to the final second.”
“The way we played and the result we got? It’s nothing I didn’t expect,” Alexander said. “But when you beat a Division I [opponent], you have to step back and see it as an accomplishment.”
The list of underperforming Red Storm players was pretty long. Ledlum had 12 rebounds but just seven points and shot 2-for-14. Zuby Ejiofor had eight rebounds but shot 1-for-6 from the floor and 3-for-11 from the line. Simeon Wilcher was limited to 16 minutes because of questionable shot selection. Jenkins didn’t make a field goal. Glenn Taylor Jr., who played well against Rutgers, didn't score in his eight minutes.
“DJ played awful, Sim wasn't great, Chris wasn't good,” Pitino said. “Nobody played well. Zuby missed a lot of free throws. But it's a learning experience.”
St. John’s clearly has a lot to cover before Nov. 7, but Pitino clearly believes the best teaching moments come after a loss.
“Here's the thing about college basketball: You always see teams with lesser names beat teams with bigger names,” he said. “ And if you don't learn that lesson — that anybody can beat us, and we know now that Stony Brook can come in and beat us — we now know how much better we have to get.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
