St. John's reinvigorated by defeating tough Utah team
St. John's Daniss Jenkins goes for for a shot against the Utah Utes on Sunday in Charleston, S.C. Credit: St. John's University
CHARLESTON, S.C. — If this St. John’s season ends up being the breakthrough that begins Rick Pitino’s promised ascent back to college basketball’s elite, all may look back on Sunday night’s performance as the turning point.
The Red Storm may have found their identity, formed in the image that Pitino has sought to shape. They played fast and moved the ball quickly to find the open man on offense and played tough man-to-man defense. They scored three-pointers in bunches and didn’t give them up when it mattered most. And they withstood a late charge and finished off a very strong Utah team for a 91-82 victory in the Charleston Classic third-place game at TD Arena.
“We beat a tremendous team tonight . . . It’s flat-out great to finish third,” a clearly pleased Pitino said. “We finished in third and we’re a little disappointed we didn’t win it. But we’re elated to come out of this 2-1 [in the three games].”
For the second game in a row, the Red Storm (3-2) played their best first half, but this time they showed a will to win in the second half when the opposition made a run at them. In the end, several players turned in their best game of the season.
Daniss Jenkins had 19 points and eight assists, Jordan Dingle added 18 points (including four three-pointers) and five assists, Chris Ledlum had 15 points and nine rebounds and Joel Soriano had 12 points and 15 rebounds for St. John’s. Nahiem Alleyne came off the bench with 10 points and showed he could play a very important role.
“The best thing about tonight was we finally played I would say closer to a complete game,” said Dingle, who credited the large contingent of St. John’s fans who made the trip. “Our energy with everybody on the team and the coaching staff was amazing. We really picked each other up. I was really proud to see us playing so hard for 40 minutes.”
St. John’s followed a very strong first half by staggering in the early going of the second. Utah (3-2) scored the first 11 points, helped by four turnovers, and turned a nine-point halftime deficit into a 54-52 lead.
The Red Storm didn’t respond well to second-half bursts in the Michigan and Dayton losses, but they did this time.
They answered with a 19-6 burst dotted with highlight-reel plays. On consecutive possessions, Dingle shucked a pair of defenders at the perimeter before driving for a massive two-handed dunk over 6-9 Ben Carlson and then drained a three-pointer from the wing. Soriano capped the run by finishing an alley-oop dunk off a lob from Alleyne for a 71-60 lead.
St. John’s ended up shooting 54%, including 13-for-26 on three-pointers.
St. John’s has glimpsed its potential in the heat of competition and that means momentum going forward. Before it opens Big East play against Xavier on Dec. 20, there are five winnable games. More to the point, the Red Storm faced major conference competition during this stretch of four games in seven days.
“[Utah] is really deep and they run a lot of great sets, which is kind of characteristic that a lot of the top teams we’ll play in the Big East,” Dingle said. “This team today was probably the biggest team we’re going to play all year — they were huge [and] shoot the ball really well — so it’s similar to a lot of the stuff we’re going to see down the line. And it’s great for us to get that exposure early on and figure out what it is that we need to do as a team in order to improve on those areas where we may be lacking. This schedule has given us a great opportunity to do that.’’
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Going 2-1 [here] and going home with some momentum,” Ledlum said. “I think it will set us off.”
St. John’s got 17 solid minutes from Alleyne off the bench and it helped.
“He was a big factor tonight playing small forward,” Pitino said. “Tonight he gives us a big lift. He gets three assists, zero turnovers, one steal.”
New Yorkers are not patient. They don’t wait for the train — they look for it. And that’s been the case with those who follow the Red Storm. After two weeks of looking into a dark tunnel, they may see their train coming.
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.
