Roger Rubin: St. John's Dillon Mitchell provides great defense, but Storm needs more scoring
St. John'sDillon Mitchell plays against the Villanova Wildcats in the first half of Big East men’s basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The last time St. John’s was coming off a loss, Dillon Mitchell played a key role in putting the Red Storm on course for the 13-game winning streak that vaulted them back into the public eye and the national rankings.
The 6-8 forward certainly didn’t do it alone, but after Red Storm coach Rick Pitino’s decided to return him to the starting lineup for the first time since the season’s opening week and keep him on the floor for an average of more than 30 minutes, St. John’s went nearly eight weeks without a defeat.
The 15th-ranked Red Storm was coming off a loss once again on Saturday night when they faced Big East rival Villanova before a sellout crowd of 19,812 at the Garden. And while the loss was nothing ordinary — the 32-point debacle against No. 6 Connecticut Wednesday was by far St. John’s poorest performance of the season to-date — many eyes were once again looking to Mitchell.
Pitino deemed the matchup against the Wildcats as “the most important game of the three-year span that I've been here . . . [for] about seven variables that are crucial.” Most significant was that St. John’s was still in a great position to win the Big East’s regular season title and the top seeding for the conference tournament. They were even in the loss column with the Huskies and entering play with the tiebreaker against them. Also important was the chance to prove that the UConn loss was an outlier and that the Storm was still the team that had won 13 in a row, including one over the Huskies on Feb. 6 at the Garden.
Mitchell averaged just 3.0 points the previous five games and didn’t score at all in the win at Marquette and the UConn loss. Now, the Storm doesn’t count on him to score much. That's because Mitchell is such a force on the defensive end. He rebounds and handles and distributes like a guard. But the Storm has needed more.
After last weekend’s win against Creighton, Bluejays coach Greg McDermott said many teams aren’t guarding him away from the basket any more, though he has still been making an impact with passing and rebounding. It wasn’t due to a lack of effort — Mitchell’s effort always is noticeable — but more about results.
“They don't guard him, but his shot doesn’t look bad, it just doesn’t go in,” Pitino said Friday. Dillon’s got to stop with the choppiness of his performances. In order for us to be consistent in the Big East Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, you’ve got to play back-to-back games well. And he’s got to stop playing two games on and one game off with no scoring. It’s got to stop and I’m sure he knows it but I am going to reconfirm it with him.”
Mitchell has been St. John’s main compensation for inadequate guard play this season from Ian Jackson and inconsistent performance by Oziyah Sellers, though Dylan Darling has come on in the second half of the campaign to become the Storm’s fourth best player after the starting frontcourt of Zuby Ejiofor, Mitchell and Bryce Hopkins.
And as Pitino said, “the backcourt generally has not performed well overall. The frontcourt has, but we need the backcourt. You can't win in the NCAA Tournament without great backcourt play.”
Mitchell didn’t dispute Pitino’s critique and added, “I’m just trying to figure out different ways to impact the game after scoring. I know the main part for me is defense, being a leader, playing with a high energy [and] effort and just going out there and kind of doing whatever I can to help the team win in different aspects.”
“So I think it's just as big as me taking a look at the mirror and seeing what I could do to be better for the team.”
That attitude is understandable after perhaps his worst game of the season — zero points, five rebounds and two assists — but he was far from the only one to blame as virtually everyone, from star Ejiofor on down, played badly.
“I’m just trying to figure out where I need to insert myself in certain games, depending on what the other team is doing, and what I can do in certain styles of game,” Mitchell said.
Storm women at Garden: The significant basketball dates at the Garden will continue into next week for St. John’s University. The women’s basketball team (21-9, 11-8) has a 7:30 p.m. game against No. 1 Connecticut (30-0, 19-0) on Sunday in the first standalone women’s college basketball game held in the building. The Red Storm beat the Huskies in 2023, the last time UConn lost a conference game . . . And Ejiofor will play his final regular — season game in a Storm uniform Tuesday when St. John’s meets Georgetown at 7 p.m. The 6-9 center, perhaps the most significant player to wear the uniform in the past quarter century, and Sadiku Ibine Ayo, Mitchell, Hopkins and Sellers will all be feted in a 6:35 p.m. “Senior Day” ceremony.
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.
