St. John’s reaches low with fourth straight conference loss
In the simplest terms, this is the state of the St. John’s basketball team: The sky is falling.
Pitted against the only other Big East team without a conference win, the St. John’s men’s basketball team came apart fast in a 91-74 loss to DePaul before 5,602 at Carnesecca Arena Saturday.
The Red Storm looked like a team for only the first few minutes. Soon they were getting out-hustled and beaten badly on the glass. By the final 10 minutes of a fourth straight loss, a team had become a bunch of individuals.
“We let them take it from us,” junior Marvin Clark II said. “It starts with our demeanor. They came in here, outrebounded us, punked us. They got going early and from there everybody was for themselves. You can’t win like that. With playing seven or eight guys, we can’t win like that.”
Clark said he is calling a players-only meeting on Sunday. The goal will be to figure out how the team that rode great defense to a 10-2 non-conference record is now a group whose season could fly apart. In four conference games, St. John’s (10-6, 0-4) is allowing an average of 84.5 points on 50 percent shooting, including 48 percent on three-point attempts, and getting outrebounded by an average of more than 11 per game.
St. John’s coach Chris Mullin was asked, based on his long Hall-of-Fame playing career, whether team meetings are effective.
“Communication is always good,” he answered. “Then it’s got to be followed up by action.”
St. John’s did not have the services of second-leading scorer Marcus LoVett for the ninth straight game; he remains day-to-day with a left knee sprain suffered six weeks ago. However, the Storm, despite playing at home, also didn’t have the energy and effort it showed in close road losses to No. 21 Seton Hall and Creighton.
DePaul (8-8, 1-3) blew past the Storm in the first half with a 21-8 run for a 33-23 lead with 5:39 left. The burst included three three-pointers and three baskets resulting from offensive rebounds. St. John’s pared the margin to 42-38 at halftime and trailed for the entire second half, cutting it to six points twice. The Blue Demons finished with 46 rebounds to St. John’s 30 and had 15 on the offensive glass for 20 second chance points.
“We have to be more physical — that’s clear as day,” Mullin said. “We have to be tougher and more physical — whether it’s loose balls, rebounds, 50-50 balls, you name it. We’ve shown we can do that and when we don’t we get manhandled.”
For St. John’s, Bashir Ahmed had 21 points and Shamorie Ponds had 15 points, though he shot 7-for-24 from the field, including 1-for-9 on three-pointers. Marin Maric had 25 points and Max Strus had 22 points for the Demons.
Mullin was asked if coming up short in those road losses might have sapped the Storm of its energy Saturday: “I would hope not. I would hope that would motivate you.” He added that the only way to turn things around is “work hard, be aggressive, don’t question yourself.”
That might begin at Sunday’s meeting.
“We’re not playing for each other right now,” Clark said. “We have to rededicate ourselves to each other. We have to remind ourselves that we are brothers and we love each other and once we can do that we can turn it around.”
