St. John's Survives Spirited Effort From Staten Island's Wagner

 

St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino patrolling the sidelines. Photo by Jason Schott.

The St. John's Red Storm. ranked 22nd in the nation in the AP Top 25 College Basketball Poll, had another strong second half to outlast Wagner, a fellow New York City school from Staten Island, 66-45, on Wednesday night at Carnesecca Arena.

The Red Storm, now 3-0 on the season, were paced by 13 points off the bench from RJ Luis Jr., who shot 3-5 overall and drilled seven free throws, along with five rebounds, an assist, and a steal.

Aaron Scott had 11 points (4-8, 1-4 on three-pointers), with a rebound and a steal. Brady Dunlap, Deivon Smith, and Simeon Wilcher each poured in nine points in the balanced St. John's scoring attack.

St. John's led 20-18 with 7:39 left in the first half, and they responded by closing it out with an 11-2 run.

Then, Wagner found themselves back within two, at 39-37, at the 10:54 mark of the second half, only to see St. John's go on an 18-0 run over the next five minutes. That was capped by a Brady Dunlap free throw at 5:48 that made it 57-37.

Tyje Kelton responded with a three-pointer, which St. John's responded to with an 8-0 run to suddenly go up 25 points, at 65-40, with 1:50 remaining. All told, St. John's closed the game on a 27-8 run to finish off the hard-fought win.

PITINO POSTGAME: St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the game, and he opened with this statement: "I've coached 50 years and a lot of times when you are playing a team that you're supposed to beat and the game gets tight, the players get tight, and you win by a couple of points. This team didn't play well offensively tonight because of the free-throw line. The free-throw line kept taking the air out of us because we would run good stuff, drive, get fouled, and then they missed free throws, which is like a turnover. That was the cause of us not playing well offensively. But I'm impressed, even though we're much more talented than Wagner, players will get tight in this type of game because you're supposed to win and everybody's expecting it. And what happens? It's a three-point game and you panic. Instead, they turned up the heat, made shots and they were very poised when it counted. I think the missed free throws really took the staunch out of us early on, but the defense was good most of the night.”

On Kadary Richmond and RJ Luis Jr. not starting against Wagner: “I know Kadary [Richmond] is ready to play. I know RJ [Luis Jr.] is ready to play. I wanted to see some of the other guys and see some of the lineups. Probably [Kadary] will start every single game for the rest of the season but I wanted to experiment a little bit, see certain things, because [Wagner] is a slowdown team. I wanted to see how they executed.”

 

On the challenging upcoming schedule: “We will have to play great offense as well as great defense to beat New Mexico and to beat a Baylor or Tennessee or Georgia. We're going to have to play much better at both ends of the floor.”

 

On Kadary Richmond’s contributions: “Our fast break tonight was 15 for 19. Kadary is very unselfish. I think he's trying to feel out his teammates. He doesn't panic. He's a cool customer. I think he's going to be fine. The better talent he goes against, the better he's going to play.”

 

On where his team stands three games into the season: “Well, look at [Wagner] tonight. Shot 29 percent from the field, 20 percent from three, we contested almost every shot. I think we're ready defensively. I think offensively, we just got to get a feel for each other a little bit more but there's something unique about this basketball team. When we went down nine or 10 against Rutgers, there was no panic. When it was three tonight, there was no panic. They took the shots that were there. I have confidence in this team, but we're going to have to play great to beat New Mexico. We'll have to play great to beat Baylor. We know that.”

 

On needing support from the fanbase: “There's only one way to get fans [in New York] and that's to win. We need our fans there on Sunday at noon. We need our fans and we're going to need them in the Bahamas as well. But I'm excited. This type of competition gets you excited.”