Three takeaways from St. John's victory over Butler
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino yells at his team during the first half of an NCAA men's basketball game Wednesday in Indianapolis, Ind. Credit: AP/Marc Lebryk
St. John’s continued to do things it hasn’t done in years on Wednesday night by persevering through a 76-70 Big East victory at Butler. The win earned the Red Storm (25-4, 16-2) a share of the Big East regular-season championship. It is the first for St. John's since the 1991-92 season, the last coached by the legendary Lou Carnesecca.
Creighton defeated DePaul, 75-65, on Wednesday, meaning St. John’s is one conference win away from its first outright regular-season title since the 1985 Final Four team. The Storm can accomplish the feat on Saturday against Seton Hall at the Garden in what is expected to be a sellout crowd.
Here are some takeways from the Red Storm’s win:.
St. John’s has one vision
After the victory, Red Storm coach Rick Pitino said, "We’re not interested in sharing anything.”
The idea that there is nothing short of winning the Big East outright title for the first time in 40 years is a goal for the Red Storm that they can accomplish.
In a television interview after the game, Pitino said, “I told the guys, we didn't come here to share anything. We have our goals. We came to win this thing. We said [it] weeks ago, and it's in our hands right now. We’ve got two games to win it, and we'll see what happens."
“No celebration," RJ Luis Jr. said. "We haven’t won anything yet. It feels good to have part of it clinched, but like Coach Pitino said, ‘I don’t want to share it and the team doesn’t want to share it.’ We have put a lot of work in this season. We kind of let Coach Pitino down tonight defensively, but like he says, ‘Good teams know how to win when they have a bad game.’ We still ended up winning, so we are just going to get prepared for Seton Hall on Saturday.”
The Red Storm continue to defy the odds
St. John’s missed 11 three-point attempts but overcame its shooting as it always has. The Storm turned 12 offensive rebounds into 18 points and 13 turnovers into 13 points. The Red Storm are inconsistent in shooting the ball but make up for it in other ways.
Luis is back to peak performance
Luis was sidelined for last week’s win at DePaul with a groin injury and returned for Sunday’s win over UConn but shot 4-for-18 and said he was “rusty” from missing practices and wasn’t sharp. He was plenty sharp on Wednesday night at Butler.
Luis scored a team-high 24 points on 9-for-16 shooting and made three three-pointers. He also had four rebounds.
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.
