St. John's exacts vengeance, throttles Marquette in 2019 opener

Shamorie Ponds (2) led all scorers with 26 points as St. John's rebounded from deflating loss to Seton Hall by trouncing Marquette Tuesday night. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

NEW YORK -- But your eyes go blind, and your blood runs cold

Sometimes I feel so weak, I just want to explode

Explode and tear this whole town apart, take a knife and cut this pain from my heart

Find somebody itchin' for somethin' to start

- Bruce Springsteen, "The Promised Land"

Three days removed from having a potentially season-defining victory stolen on the inadvertent whistle of Michael Stephens that was later attributed to a timing error as St. John's saw a 14-point lead slip away in the final seconds Saturday night to Seton Hall, the Red Storm had a second chance to redeem itself on Tuesday, welcoming Marquette to Carnesecca Arena to ring in 2019.

Ranked 16th in the nation, the Golden Eagles represented the strongest opponent for St. John's on the season, a campaign largely defined -- until this past weekend at least -- by the criticism the Red Storm faced for its non-conference schedule. With the fallout from the Prudential Center still fresh in everyone's minds Tuesday, though, the question surrounding the opening tip was this:

How would St. John's respond?

With its most complete, and most emphatic, performance of the season.

Led by Shamorie Ponds, who scored 20 of his 26 points in the first half, and whose back-to-back step-back three-point field goals in the waning moments of the opening stanza were harbingers of the beginning of the end for a Marquette team with three victories over Top 15 opponents on its ledger, the Red Storm saw each of its five starters score 11 or more points in an 89-69 demolition of the Golden Eagles, officially extinguishing any lingering bitterness from the Seton Hall ending many fans instantly called a debacle and burying it in the conflagration of the program's most decisive win over a ranked team in over two decades.

"There were a couple of little errors that we made in that game, and it shouldn't have got to that point," Ponds said when referencing the Seton Hall conclusion, putting it to rest as St. John's (13-1, 1-1 Big East) scored its third consecutive victory over a ranked opponent, a streak dating back to the cathartic triumphs over fourth-ranked Duke and top-ranked eventual national champion Villanova. "I needed to bounce back individually, and as a team, we needed to bounce back. It was nice to get this win tonight."

"We finally gelled," Marvin Clark said of the Red Storm's exploits and fusion between Saturday and Tuesday, adding 22 points on 7-of-10 shooting and four three-pointers to the cause. "We've got some talented guys on our team, and when we're playing together and sharing the ball, it's hard to stop us, as you can see."

As a team, St. John's shot over 53 percent from the floor, backing up Clark's claim that the Red Storm -- when firing on all cylinders -- is difficult to contain. Lending even further credence to the boast was how the St. John's transition game, which shut Marquette out by a 12-0 margin in fast break points, got back into sequence on the defensive end by holding the Golden Eagles' all-conference duo of Markus Howard and Sam Hauser to a combined 5-for-23 showing from the field, the former being rendered ineffective by an abysmal 2-for-15 display that yielded only eight points.

"We keyed on him, we did a good job on him," said Ponds of defending Howard. "We know he likes to take a lot of threes, so we just tried to limit their transition points and limit him getting threes up."

And as Marquette saw its 25-point-per-game scorer bottled up through the night, the effectiveness of Clark playing against a traditional big man revealed itself.

"It's definitely a blessing, because he can play inside-out," Ponds said of Clark's two-way ability. "It definitely stretches the defense out. We like him at the five because we have an advantage, he can shoot us over and drive it. We like our lineup."

"Just being able, honestly, to hold my own on the defensive end, that's the biggest thing," Clark said of his matchups. "It definitely makes the game easier for me just playing at the position. It definitely makes my job a lot easier."

What was not easy, however, was readjusting and refocusing following a true punch to the gut Saturday night, one that Ponds -- the emotional and transcendent leader -- took hardest of all.

"As soon as the buzzer went off, you could tell he was upset," Clark recounted. "Right away, we got to the locker room and he apologized to us. We talked as a team and we put that one behind us, and he came out tonight and lived up to his word. He told us he had us, and he played real big tonight. We fed off that."

"I'm just glad he played well," Chris Mullin said of Ponds' outing. "I know he didn't feel good about the last game. The one thing about that is I've played games just like that, exactly like it, and the only thing you want to do is go out and play again, play well. Days like that, they're really good teaching moments, basketball-wise and also for life. Things get thrown your way unexpectedly -- and a lot of times, you're not gonna like them -- but I think the most important thing is how you handle them -- how you accept them, digest them, forgive and move on -- and I thought he played a beautiful game. I just think for a kid like Shamorie, feeling like he did two days ago, and then coming back and leading this team, that's what college basketball's all about."

Just as Shavar Reynolds -- the former walk-on turned scholarship athlete whose game-winning three at St. John's expense Saturday night highlighted the perpetual feel-good story of redemption, so too did the Red Storm's thrashing of a team widely considered among the favorites to win the conference. In fact, the redemptive tale here is that the Red Storm -- should it be able to replicate this effort more often than not during the Big East season -- is undoubtedly good enough to cut down a net at Madison Square Garden in March, a sentiment its fifth-year senior agrees with even though the cynics remain.

"It shows that we have a talented team, but I think it shows we still have a lot to prove," Clark admitted. "I take my hat off to Marquette, the No. 16 (ranked) team coming in, but it just shows that whatever the naysayers were saying about our non-conference schedule doesn't matter. That's what I think it says most."