Pitino’s MSG return a disappointment as Johnnies fall to Michigan

Daniss Jenkins puts up a shot for St. John’s, who fought Michigan in first half before being overpowered by Wolverines Monday night. (Photo by Vincent Dusovic/St. John’s Athletics)

NEW YORK — Gotta pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues

’Cause you know it don’t come easy

You don’t have to shout or leap about

You can even play them easy

Ringo Starr, “It Don’t Come Easy”

Rick Pitino’s return to Madison Square Garden had all the bells and whistles befitting of a championship game atmosphere, and the accompaniment of over 14,000 to see what his first game leading St. John’s inside the home of the Knicks and Rangers would look like.

For 17 minutes, it looked evenly matched as the Red Storm stood toe-to-toe with a Michigan team picked fourth-to-last in the Big Ten preseason poll. But an 11-3 run by the Wolverines to close the first half gave way to a dominant second stanza by the visitors, who opened the Gavitt Tipoff Games with an emphatic 89-73 takedown of the Johnnies, one whose final score was much closer than the game let on.

A track meet sequence to open the proceedings saw nearly eight minutes of action elapse before the first media timeout. In that span, Nimari Burnett was on his way to a star-making performance, already scoring 15 of his 21 points while not missing a shot from the floor in the initial frame. Sophomore point guard Dug McDaniel took over from there, using his speed and shifty stature to weave his way through the lane and the Red Storm’s physicality and size advantage to carve up St. John’s with 26 points, seven assists and six rebounds as Pitino merely tipped his hat to the diminutive floor general.

“We knew that they were one of the best shooting teams in the country,” the Hall of Fame tactician said of Michigan and its systematic breakdown of St. John’s (1-1). “What we didn’t expect was to get dominated by their point guard the way he dominated us tonight. He’s a terrific little player and he dominated us. When he wasn’t scoring, he was finding open people, so our rotations weren’t there. I think our guys were exposed a little bit in terms of rotations, and that’ll come, they’ll get better at that. They didn’t expect to get beat that easily tonight.”

“Their backcourt dominated our backcourt, but they played intelligent basketball and we did not. And we’ll learn from that. Watching (Michigan), I thought they were a great basketball team. I thought we could score against them, but not the way we tried to score tonight. The difference between our offense and their offense is they used each other to get great shots, and we went one-on-one way too much. Even though we have a bunch of veterans, they played as individuals. And Michigan deserved it because of that.”

The crisp, free-flowing offense St. John’s displayed in its season-opening win over Stony Brook was nonexistent Monday night, replaced by a majority of one-on-one basketball that Michigan exploited as the second half wore on to silence a largely partisan crowd whose hope was drowned out down the stretch by chants of “Let’s Go Blue” and “free Jim Harbaugh,” the latter in reference to the Wolverines’ embattled football coach who is currently serving a suspension stemming from the sign-stealing scandal that has captured the attention of the college football world. Joel Soriano led the way, as is usually the case, but his supporting cast did not raise its game to a similar level.

“Our defense tonight was not good, but I’m gonna give all the credit to Michigan,” a candid Pitino stated. “Our offense shocked the s*** out of me, shocked the hell out of me that we didn’t share the ball and move the basketball. Joel didn’t post up one time in the arc, and that was disturbing. Those were things we had to do.”

Soriano fought his way to 15 points and nine rebounds to be the most impressive player in the final stats, but received very little support as Chris Ledlum could not replicate his double-double last week, struggling with four points and five rebounds as St. John’s lack of frontcourt depth caught up with it in midtown Manhattan.

“We did a good job of putting this team together,” Pitino lamented. “Where we didn’t do a good job, and it’s nobody’s fault because we just couldn’t get it done, our frontcourt depth is terrible. It’s not enough. You need to have five or six frontcourt guys, and we have too much depth in the backcourt and not enough in the frontcourt. When you take over a job like Ed (Cooley) did (at Georgetown) and I did, you just gotta take what you can get at that point, but going forward, we need more frontcourt depth. Chris played a lot of minutes, but I don’t really have anybody to take his place. That’s the weakest position we have.”

St. John’s now sets its sights on the Charleston Classic, where awaiting the Johnnies in the multi-team event will be North Texas on Thursday with either LSU or Dayton the following day. The ultimate goal is to be in the championship game Sunday against the presumed tournament favorite Houston, but Pitino now needs to assess the letdown Monday before moving on.

“We go over the good, the bad, and the teaching points,” he said of his postgame film study. “And tomorrow, they’ll be humiliated by what they did offensively. Where they will be humiliated is with their selfish offense. They’ll be embarrassed of that, and that’ll be a good lesson because it happens all the time. They’ll be loaded for bear against North Texas because they’ll be so upset at themselves. We won’t even have to raise our voices. I always tell the players, the film never lies. It never lies. And they’re gonna watch it tomorrow and they’re going to be very embarrassed at their play.”

“If we play like we did tonight, we’ll struggle. We’ll excel in January and February, but we have to be careful now because this early schedule is tough. Am I disappointed? Yes, but it’s not going to change the way we work. We’ll get back at it.”