St. John's, playing without coach Rick Pitino and guard Jordan Dingle, takes drubbing from Seton Hall
St. John's Red Storm guard Nahiem Alleyne goes to the bench during the second half against the Seton Hall Pirates at the Prudential Center in Newark on Tuesday. Credit: Noah K. Murray
NEWARK — St. John’s hadn’t even arrived at Prudential Center for its Tuesday night Big East matchup against Seton Hall and it already seemed to be traveling a path to defeat.
About 3 1/2 hours before tip-off, the school announced that coach Rick Pitino wouldn’t be on the sideline after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier in the day. Then, an hour before start time, came more bad news: fourth-leading scorer Jordan Dingle would be out for the contest due to illness.
And when the Red Storm took the court, they looked listless and unfocused. They missed their first 10 shots and didn’t score until nearly five minutes was gone. They got back in it briefly and then gave up 28 unanswered points over 8:31 bridging the two halves. At the end of the carnage, Seton Hall had an 80-65 win before 9,204.
Of the Pirates scoring the final 14 points of the first half and first 14 of the second, Daniss Jenkins said, “You never think of things like that. Basketball is a game of runs, but we knew coming out of halftime we needed to come out punching. We needed to come out swinging. And it was almost as if we went the other way. . . . instead of fighting back, we just gave in.”
“That team just punked us — that’s all they did,” he added. “They played their game. That’s the way we should play. They played for steals, they played aggressive, they crashed the offensive glass and they know themselves on offense.”
For St John’s (12-6, 4-3) it was the most-lopsided loss since the 16-pointer to Michigan on Nov. 13 and the Storm only avoided surpassing that by scoring the game’s last eight points against the end of the Pirates’ bench. St. John’s is now 1-12 all-time against Seton Hall at Prudential Center.
Jenkins had 17 points and five assists and Zuby Ejiofor scored a career-high 13 points for St. John’s, which next hosts No. 17 Creighton at the Garden on Saturday. The status of Pitino and Dingle for that game remains undetermined. St. John’s officials said Pitino was expected back later in the week “if he is feeling better.” Current CDC guidance on its website states, “If you test positive for COVID-19, stay home for at least five days and isolate from others.”
“We’ll take it day by day and see what happens,” said associate head coach Steve Masiello, who assumed Pitino’s role. “Hopefully he is [back]. We missed Coach tonight, no doubt about that.”
Al-Amir Dawes had 21 points and St. John’s transfer Dylan Addae-Wusu had 16 points and 10 rebounds for Seton Hall (13-5, 6-1), which now stands alone atop the Big East standings. Of playing against his former team, Addae-Wusu said, “It’s just another game.”
According to St. John’s officials, Pitino started to feel poorly Saturday before the one-point loss to now-No. 18 Creighton in Omaha. He felt worse following the ride to the airport afterward on a bus that had no functioning heating due to the subzero temperatures there. He missed practice Sunday and returned to run the workout Monday, but felt worse again Tuesday before getting tested.
Masiello was asked about a cause-and-effect relationship between the Pitino news and the ghastly performance and replied; “It's not about excuses. This is college basketball — adversity is going to happen every day. You have to respond to adversity. It's 10% what happens [and] 90% how you respond to it . . . We didn’t respond well today and we have to own that and be better.”
Jenkins said: “Obviously our head coach is gone, so I can imagine what’s going through [everyone’s] minds, but the conversation in the locker room was strictly about winning the game. We knew the adversity we were facing and we knew the way we needed to come out and punch from the jump and we didn’t do it.”
St. John’s was outrebounded 49-28 for the game and the Pirates had 21 offensive boards that they turned into 19 points. Jenkins said the team’s effort was “terrible for each and every one of us.”
After trailing 13-2 early, Jenkins made a three-pointer to tie the game at 24 with 4:33 left in the first half. Seton Hall scored the next 28 points and it was 52-24 on two Elijah Hutchins-Everett free throws with 16:32 to play.
“That’s unacceptable, especially coming off a tough road loss like that,” Jenkins continued. “We did lose on the road twice already in tough games but we were supposed to correct those little things to make us not lose on the road again. Instead, we did the opposite.”
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.
