St. John’s flipped the script from Sunday’s
loss at Iowa state, which saw them start the game trailing 17-2, and roared out
of the gate in their Big East opener against DePaul. They used a 12- 0 start to
seize control of the game early and earn a decisive 86-67 win over the Blue Demons,
raise their record to 9-1 overall and, for the moment at least, give them a
share of 1st place in the Big East Conference.
“After our performance at Iowa State we wanted
to pick it up a little bit”, said Joel Soriano who led the way with 17 points
and 13 rebounds for his 8th double double of the season. “We emphasized
a lot of moving of the basketball and buckets in transition. When we move like
that it’s beautiful basketball.”
The “beautiful basketball” to which the
Johnnies’ leader referred to produced an effort that was both well balanced and
efficient. In addition to Soriano’s 17 points four other Johnnies, Andre
Curbelo, Dylan Adde-Wusu, Posh Alexander and David Jones all hit for double figures.
And they shot a combined 50.8% from the floor that included outscoring the Blue
Demons 50-38 in the paint.
DePaul closed the margin to six points with 9:06
left in the first half when Ahmad Bynum converted a pass from Da’Sean Nelson to
make the score 24-18. St. John’s responded with a run of their own when Dylan
Adde-Wusu and Rafael Pinzon worked a give-and go for a Pinzon layup and
included a flurry of activity that saw Curbelo connect on helpers to both Soriano
and Alexander for baskets. The Johnnies took a 40-29 margin into the locker room
and bumped it to 45-29 when Alexander hit Montez Mathis for a deep triple in
the opening moments of the second half.
A 12-5 DePaul run that featured 5 points by Philmont
Gebrewhit and a triple by K.T. Raimey trimmed the deficit to 50-41, David Jones
and Da’Sean Nelson traded buckets before St. John’s reasserted control of the
game. Despite a poor shooting game from beyond the arc, their ball movement
passing and cutting helped them build a margin of 24 in the game’s closing
moments. “I talked about taking the sense of urgency up many notches”, coach Mike
Anderson said. “Defensively that was our most consistent effort…I think the
game rewarded is with a win in conference play against a DePaul team that’s
going to scratch and claw.”
Notes and
Observations: New Jersey
native freshman Zion Cruz led DePaul with 14 points while Earl Penn a graduate
transfer forward from LIU-Brooklyn contributed 6 points and 7 boards.
Pinzon had his 3rd straight strong game off the bench for St. John’s scoring 9 points while adding 4 rebounds and a pair of assists, one of which was a pretty drive and dime play to Soriano for a dunk. When evaluating Pinzon’s progress, it’s worth noting that because of illness and injury last night marked his 20th college game. Under more typical circumstances that would put him 2/3 of the way through his freshman season right about the time when good players begin to figure out what they can do at the “next level”.
St. John’s next faces New Hampshire
on Saturday at Carnesecca Arena at 6 pm.
Coach Bill Herrion’s squad will be coming off a win vs. ACC foe Boston
College on Tuesday that featured a 34-point 14 rebound performance from junior
forward Clarence Daniels as well as a 20-point 8 rebound effort from redshirt
junior and former All Hallows (BX) standout Nick Johnson
