St. John's completely dominated by UConn, lose by 32 points in Connecticut
UConn forward Tarris Reed Jr. dunks the ball in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against St. John's on Wednesday in Hartford, Connecticut. Credit: AP/Jessica Hill
HARTFORD, Conn. — St. John’s coach Rick Pitino insisted he was to blame. Red Storm star Zuby Ejiofor said it was “100%” on the players. Once one sifts through the carnage that No. 6 Connecticut wrought on the 15th-ranked Storm, there’s a good chance everyone from St. John’s feels responsible.
The Connecticut program that won two of the last three national championships has resurfaced and showed up to face rival St. John’s with a vengeance. The Red Storm met the most consequential moment of their season to-date with by far their worst performance. The Huskies completely decimated the Red Storm in every facet and ended their 13-game winning streak with a 72-40 Big East rout before a raucous sellout crowd of 15,495 at PeoplesBank Arena.
The 40 points in the lowest total for a Pitino-coached team in his five decades in college basketball, according to CBSsports.com. He compared it with a 55-point loss to Kansas during his first season after taking over scandal-ridden Kentucky in 1989-90 and “but I was playing with very much an inferior team and some walk-ons, not with this type of team.”
UConn (26-3, 16-2) was on a quest to earn a No. 1 seeding for the NCAA Tournament but it took a couple dings this month with the Feb. 6 loss to the Storm at the Garden and another defeat against Creighton. But in doing what it did to the Storm, it looked very much worthy.
The Huskies essentially took St. John’s out of the game with an 18-0 run over 7:23 in the first half. And that was only the beginning. St. John’s didn’t make a field goal in the final 17:28 of the game. St. John’s trailed by 20 at 31-11 when Braylon Mullins made a three-pointer with 6:37 left in the first half. St. John’s never got the margin to less than 14.
Asked what he made of St. John’s performance, Ejiofor replied, “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you honestly, I’ve never been through that experience. I don’t know.”
“It’s all on me,” Pitino said.
With respect to the Big East regular season championship, UConn is now even in the loss column with St. John’s (22-6, 15-2). St. John’s currently holds the tiebreaker for the No. 1 seed and hosts third-place Villanova Saturday night at the Garden.
“We did things we’ve never done,” Pitino said. “It’s something I’ve got to question about myself and I will question it because the team did not do the things we’ve done in the last 13 games.”
“We’re still playing for a league championship,” he added. “It doesn’t matter whether you lose by one or 40. The league championship is still at stake. Obviously, we make our corrections and move on.”
He’s on the mark about how different the team was compared with the past seven-plus weeks. St. John’s has thrived on forcing turnovers, tenacious offensive rebounding and great physicality on the defensive end. On Wednesday night, UConn made only five turnovers and St. John’s managed just six points off offensive rebounding and allowed the Huskies to make 48% of their shots.
And the great frontcourt play that has been St. John’s anchor? Ejiofor, Bryce Hopkins and Dillon Mitchell had a combined 14 points on 5-for-23 shooting. Joson Sanon’s 10 points was the Storm’s best offensive performance.
Huskies center Tarris Reed Jr. essentially had his way all night as he rolled up 20 points, 11 rebounds and six blocked shots. Alex Karaban added 14 points and Solo Ball had 11. Reed had 12 points and six rebounds in the teams’ first meeting.
“To me, the game is about just Tarris Reed and what he’s capable of,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “Why do most people change in life? Because of pain. Pain forces people to change and I think the pain of that Creighton game, the pain of that St John’s game at MSG has lit something with that guy.”
When the teams met in New York, UConn couldn’t match St. John’s physicality. It was quite the opposite in this rematch.
“That’s always been our calling card,” Ejiofor said. “I felt like when [other] teams were able to make a run on us, we were able to respond in a positive way. But tonight was not what I was expecting at all . . . We were not able to respond at all throughout the entire 40 minutes to their runs.”
In addition to the 18 unanswered points UConn had in the first half, it had a 27-5 run through much of the second half.
“It was just our night,” Hurley said. “It just starts snowballing on you when you have a night like [theirs]. We played really good defense on them and I thought we demoralized them a little bit.”
“We were up for this game,” Ejiofor said. “Things just didn’t flow our way at all.”
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.
