St. John's slowly dominates woeful DePaul
Jordan Dingle of St. John's shoots the ball over K.T. Raimey of DePaul during a Big East men's basketball game at UBS Arena on Tuesday. Credit: Errol Anderson
St. John’s got a big dose of the sure cure for whatever is going wrong for a college basketball program on Tuesday night: a game against DePaul.
The Red Storm grabbed control in the early going against the woeful Big East cellar-dwellers and then accelerated away in the second half and coasted to an 85-57 victory before a sparse crowd of 6,035 on Rick Pitino Bobblehead Night at UBS Arena.
“The bobblehead [messed] up the crowd [numbers],” Pitino quipped. “If it wasn’t for the bobblehead, we’d have had 10,000 or 12,000 people. They were protesting the bobblehead.”
St. John’s (14-9, 6-6) emerged from a disappointing stretch of five losses in six games and will have some positive momentum going into Saturday’s road game against seventh-ranked Marquette.
While the Red Storm did largely what was expected — winning big against the statistically lowest-rated power conference team according to Kenpom.com, going plus-17 on the boards and forcing 19 turnovers that it converted to 26 points — the most significant things to come out of the win were their improved shooting on the three-point arc and the emergence of Jordan Dingle.
St. John’s had been in a three-point shooting slump — it was 25-for-100 over the previous six games, bringing it to 29% in conference play — and broke out with a season-high 15 on 40 attempts. The 15 three-pointers is the most St. John’s has recorded in a Big East game and the 37.5% shooting from three was its highest since the 38.9% against Providence on Jan. 10.
“I wanted movement and I wanted them to take open shots and I didn’t want them to count their misses,” Pitino said. “[DePaul] gave it. They’re looking at the stat sheet and saying ‘give them the outside shot.’ . . . [Virtually] every one was a good three . . . I’ll take 40 threes if they can shoot 37%. I’ll take that every night.”
Dingle entered the season as Division I’s top returning scorer after averaging 23.4 points last season at Penn. He was averaging just 10.6 this season and making 41% from the floor and 29% on three-pointers. He tied Daniss Jenkins with team highs of 14 points and four three-pointers against the Blue Demons (3-20, 0-12).
“Look, we need him to score,” Pitino said. “The more he moves, the more [Jenkins] will get him a wide open shot . . . The more you move, the more you cut, and I’ll take him against any shooter in the country.”
“I just need to step up and do my job,” Dingle said. “Tonight was great. They found me all night.”
Said Jenkins: “He gives us a different dynamic — Jordan is an unbelievable scorer.”
Joel Soriano added 11 points for St. John’s, which got points from 11 of 12 players. K.T. Raimey scored 11 points and Jalen Terry added 10 for DePaul.
St. John’s pulled away with a 17-2 run in the second half. Nahiem Alleyne started it with a three-pointer with 15:31 left to play and Brady Dunlap capped it with a three-pointer for a 60-35 lead with 11:58 left. Jenkins had eight points and Dunlap had six in the burst.
St. John’s biggest lead was 78-48 on a pair of Sean Conway free throws with 4:27 remaining.
A Pitino Legacy?
Pitino was asked about rumors that his son, New Mexico coach Richard Pitino, could be a candidate to fill the vacancy at DePaul created when Tony Stubblefield was fired Jan. 22 and replied: “I, personally, want him to stay at New Mexico. I want him to stay at New Mexico until I leave St. John’s and he can take my place then.” He later added “I have no say in what he does.”
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.
