St. John's defeats Xavier with total team effort
St. John's Zuby Ejiofor shoots against Xavier on Tuesday. Credit: St. John's Athletics
CINCINNATI — It was there early when Kadary Richmond drove through defenders to get layups and short jumpers. And it was there in the middle when RJ Luis Jr. made acrobatic shots in the lane and Zuby Ejiofor wouldn’t let a rebound get away. And it was still there at the end, when Aaron Scott missed a three-pointer, followed his shot and got it back to drive for a dunk.
St. John’s coach Rick Pitino has been looking for 40 minutes of high-level effort from the Red Storm and he got it on Tuesday night in the team’s most-important game to-date. The Storm shot miserably from the three-point arc (2-for-16), but made up for it by decimating Xavier in every other way en route to a 82-72 Big East victory before 9,328 at Cintas Center.
St. John’s (13-3, 4-1) has won eight of its last nine games, but this win — against a team tabbed to finish third by Big East coaches in a preseason poll — is significant for a few reasons. It is the team’s first Quad I win and could be an onramp for it to get back into the national rankings.
A victory over Villanova on Saturday at the Garden should land the Storm back in the AP Top 25 on Monday.
“For 37 minutes tonight, that’s the best basketball we played this season,” Pitino said. “The one thing you have to appreciate is that . . . . We just play so hard that you just see it. We’re relentless on the glass. We play so hard defensively, we scrap, we move.”
No stat bears that out more than the 50-30 rebounding edge where 20 offensive rebounds led to 22 Red Storm points. But it was there in a gritty defense that held a Musketeers squad that came in averaging 39.8% on three pointers to 4-for-18. And there was the way that they got to so many 50-50 balls.
“If you want to talk about a hard-playing, tough-minded group, I don’t know if there is a team in the country that embodies those qualities better than them,” Xavier coach Sean Miller said. “You know, 20 second shots — I give them credit — they’re good at it and obviously they exposed us at a very high level,” he added.
“[And] 81 shot attempts? I can’t remember too many games that I’ve been a part of where a team shot 81 shots in a 40-minute game.”
Contributions came from all over. Ejiofor had 18 points and 12 rebounds, Luis had 18 points and 10 rebounds, Richmond had 12 points and six assists and Scott had 12 points and eight boards for St. John’s.
And Simeon Wilcher, who appeared headed for Pitino’s doghouse after attempting a windmill dunk — and missing — instead of letting the clock run out on a win Saturday against Butler, had 15 points and three assists for the Storm, which was 2-for-16 on three-point attempts.
Wilcher said he was grateful Pitino didn’t suspend him and made a public apology.
With Richmond the driving force, St. John’s opened an early 14-point lead only to see it shrink to 41-37 at halftime. They halted that slide soon after the intermission with a 20-7 run that included six points each by Luis and Scott. Wilcher had a fast break layup with 8:29 left and St. John’s never let Xavier back into the game.
It’s gotten to a place where each time the Red Storm takes the floor, it takes a step forward in some way.
“You want to ascend,” Pitino said. “You don’t want to look ahead. You just want to keep ascending and we are. And you want to play great basketball. We obviously we’re not [making] threes again today, but they were all good threes [and] we got the rebound.”
He attributed some of to improved player mindset. He said they are learning not to let one play that goes badly bleed into the next one and the next one. He called Scott “a perfect example.”
“That epitomizes what I’m talking about,” Pitino said. “He’s struggling from the three he didn’t let it affect him. He was a killer on the glass, a killer . . . He didn’t let the [missed] threes affect him, and in other games he let it affect him. He’s come full circle.”
The St. John’s players are truly starting to believe as well. “I feel like we’re on a we’re on a great path, a great trajectory,” Wilcher said. “I feel like we just got to keep doing what we’re doing, just keep getting better, day in and day out, believing in one another and like we could go places we never thought we could.”
Notes & quotes: Jaiden Glover had an MRI on his right wrist that showed no broken bones. He is a possibility for Saturday’s game.
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.
