St. John’s locks down Towson in last exhibition tuneup before opener

Rick Pitino calls out directives as St. John’s limited Towson to 46 points Saturday in exhibition at Carnesecca Arena. (Photo by Vincent Dusovic/St. John’s Athletics)

NEW YORK — Rick Pitino wanted to see what he had from his second unit Saturday, so the Hall of Fame coach submitted an unconventional starting lineup Saturday afternoon as his St. John’s team hosted Towson in its second exhibition contest before its opener against Fordham on November 4.

By the time the final buzzer sounded, it didn’t matter who contested the opening tip, as the Red Storm dominated in a defensive masterclass against a Towson team picked as the preseason favorite in the Coastal Athletic Association. St. John’s took control in the opening minutes of the first half, tightened the screws as the afternoon ensued, and held the Tigers to 28 percent shooting from the floor in a 64-46 domination at Carnesecca Arena.

“I wanted to play guys I haven’t seen in games to see what they can do getting ready for Fordham,” Pitino said of his starting lineup, which consisted of freshman Jaiden Glover, sophomore Brady Dunlap, and transfers Vince Iwuchukwu, Aaron Scott and Deivon Smith. “I didn’t care about playing the starters too much, because I know what they can do.”

“Our mindset coming into this game was we needed to work on our defense,” added Scott, whose 11 points matched RJ Luis for the team lead. “We gave up a lot of points against (Rutgers) and we knew this team was a very experienced team, they had a lot of starters coming back. So we had to lock in on the defensive end, and as you can see, we only gave up 46. We locked in on defense and we got the stops we needed.”

In last week’s first of two tuneups before opening night, St. John’s won an uncharacteristic shootout against Rutgers, scoring 91 points to the Scarlet Knights’ 85. Pitino, by design, wanted to prepare his team for a strong defensive opposition so that his own group could come away the better unit on that end of the floor, and was ultimately satisfied with what he saw as the Johnnies forced 25 turnovers and ran Towson off the 3-point line for the majority of the day.

“This was a much better performance,” he reflected, comparing Towson’s defensive pressure to what the Red Storm would eventually see from Seton Hall during Big East play. “We wanted to be the better defensive team against an outstanding defensive team, and we certainly did a lot of great things defensively. We rotated well, we stopped the ball, we challenged shots. We just didn’t block out.”

The other positive takeaway was the continued development of the bench. Pitino was vocal about needing to cultivate his backup forwards and centers last week, even as Zuby Ejiofor carved Rutgers up for 27 points and 13 rebounds, 10 of which came on the offensive glass. Iwuchukwu and freshman Ruben Prey each logged more than 15 minutes of game action, with fellow rookies Glover and Lefteris Liotopoulos — the latter of whom made his debut Saturday — also played double-figure minutes as the Red Storm was able to showcase its immense depth throughout the afternoon.

“Ruben’s the better five man on the perimeter, and (Vince) is better inside,” Pitino said. “Ruben’s a very good European player, knows how to pass, knows how to move, and (Vince) is a different type of player. So I have confidence in both of them now, and I found that out today. I wanted to see them, because they were so impressive in practice the last two days.”

“We’ve got a lot of depth,” Scott said of the 12-man rotation. “As you can see, we subbed five in, five out, and we still played. We still kept the intensity up with the subs, and we have a lot of depth. The freshmen, it’s their first year and they gotta get used to the game speed and everything, but today was really a good showing for them, to build trust for Coach so that they could play.”

Pitino hinted at facing different styles over the course of the season, the other reason why he wanted to test his team against a gritty Towson side. While last year’s iteration of the Red Storm was marked by a longer cohesion period before the team hit its best stride, this year’s outfit seems more organized defensively, a concern that popped up in losses to Michigan, Dayton and Boston College last season. The main objective on this day was to simply be the better defense while also using the day to find out more about what the coach had at his disposal. Mission accomplished.

“That’s what we wanted to get out of this game,” Pitino further elaborated, likening Saturday’s game to his national champion Louisville’s matchup with Wichita State in the 2013 Final Four. “We’ve been working about 75 percent of our practices just with man defense, and one of the reasons we weren’t ready at the beginning of last year was we weren’t good defensively. We learned a valuable lesson (and we) came away with an outstanding defensive performance. Towson is a very well-coached team, very good defensively, very physical, and we got a lot out of playing against them. It was really, really good for us today.”