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| St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino and his team during a timeout. Photo by Jason Schott. |
The St. John's Red Storm rolled to a 99-77 win over Bryant, backed by another sterling second half performance, on Wednesday night at Carnesecca Arena.
Zuby Ejiofor led St. John's in points for the second straight game, as he poured in 22 points on 7-10 shooting, with 8-12 from the free throw line. He also had 10 rebounds to give him a double-double, and also notched an assist.
RJ Luis Jr. and Aaron Scott each had 17 points, and Scott had 10 rebounds to give him a double-double. Luis had four rebounds and three assists, and each had two steals.
Simeon Wilcher had 14 points, on 6-10 shooting, including 2-4 on three-pointers, with two assists, two steals, and a rebound.
Deivon Smith had 14 points (6-10 FG, 2-4 threes), with four rebounds, three assists, and two steals, off the bench.
St. John's led this one, 45-41, at halftime, but Bryant tied it at on a hook shot from Jakal Robinson at the 18:24 mark of the second half.
It was still a one-point game, with St. John's up 54-53 with 15:04 remaining, before they went on a game-turning 17-2 run over the next three minutes and 21 seconds hat was capped by an Aaron Scott jumper.
Eventually, that would build into a 20-point lead, 79-59, on a Brady Dunlap three-pointer with 8:15 left.
St. John's would put up 54 points in the second half, on 51.1 percent shooting, or 24-47. This eclipsed Saturday's 53-point second half output in Saturday's win over Kansas State.
The Red Storm are now 8-2 on the season, and they will commence the Big East Conference portion of their schedule on Tuesday night against DePaul at The Lou (credit to Josh Adams).
PITINO POSTGAME: St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the game, and he opened with this statement: "We worked very hard on preparing for this team because they have a lot of offensive talent and are very difficult to play because they play five out. Everybody's going five out. We struggle with that. We struggle because we foul too much one-on-one. Our team defense is good. Our one-on-one defense, we got to really work hard on that because we're fouling too much.”
On the team’s strong second-half play: “When you play a really good team, they're going to make comebacks, and we're going to make comebacks. As I look at the BIG EAST, it's all evenly matched teams. Marquette is playing the best right now because it's December. We don't know who's going to play the best in February. Basketball is a game of runs. It's not a game of first half, second half. We played excellent on offense tonight, and we struggled a little bit guarding the basketball defensively, but that's more [Bryant’s] ability. I just think basketball is a game of runs…and as long as you have the run to win the game, like we did, that's the good thing.”
On Deivon Smith and his second-half putback dunk…
“I think Deivon is pushing the pace, gets everybody to play fast. To be honest with you, I've seen a lot of great plays in my time, what he did on that follow-up is not to be believed. I don't know any player I've ever coached that could get up that high. I was speechless when I saw that. He can do some amazing things, but he gave us a big lift because he picked up the pace, got everybody going with easy shots and he only played 16 minutes.”
On Zuby Ejiofor’s work ethic…
“Everybody doesn't have it. Working hard is a skill, and I've coached for 50 years, every player can't work like Zuby. … Nobody on the team works like Zuby because he's relentless in everything he does and he doesn't get many breaks.”
On if the team is ready for BIG EAST play…
“I think we're more than ready. I think we're playing really good offensive basketball. We're sharing the ball, a lot of assists, moving the ball.”
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