Rebounding a concern for St. John’s after exhibition tests

While Dillon Mitchell (1) has shown promise on defensive end, his teammates are still learning Rick Pitino’s high standards as St. John’s gears up for season opener Monday. (Photo by St. John’s Athletics)

NEW YORK — St. John’s has tried to temper expectations for a team ranked fifth in the country and viewed as a potential Final Four contender.

Head coach Rick Pitino was open and honest about challenging his squad often during the non-conference slate the Red Storm will navigate, wanting to identify weak points in real time so that they can be shored up well ahead of the Johnnies’ December 16 Big East Conference opener against DePaul.

On the heels of an overtime loss to seventh-ranked Michigan in a Saturday exhibition at Madison Square Garden, Pitino did not necessarily offer excuses, but instead delivered a rudimentary diagnosis of his roster after an opponent he praised as a teaching tool.

“Defensively, we’re nowhere near where we were last year, but this was a great exhibition game and I’m so happy that we found out where we need to get better and where to work,” he said Saturday. “We have eight new players and we need to find our weaknesses, where we need to work and improve.”

“There’s a lot of things that need to be cleaned up,” senior forward Zuby Ejiofor echoed, despite a 24-point, 6-rebound, 6-assist effort. “We’re just trying to get back to the defensive mindset that we were at last year. It’s gonna take time, but we’ll figure it out.”

For Pitino, who crafted a defense that ranked second in the nation a year ago, trailing only nations runner-up Houston, the roadblock at the present moment is a group still learning not only one another and how to coalesce as one, but the need to rebound from every position on the floor as well.

“They’re not used to working together, and that’s been the toughest thing so far,” the coach admitted. “We’re not a together team defensively because we’ve been outrebounded twice now, by Towson and (Michigan).”

“We definitely got better from the Towson game, but the same problem two games in a row, our guards did not rebound the ball. In the (Towson) game, all the backcourt players had three rebounds (total). (Against Michigan), you’ve got Oziyah (Sellers) with zero, Joson (Sanon) with zero, Ian (Jackson) with one and you’ve got Dylan Darling with zero. And what happens is if it’s a long rebound, the guards have to get tougher and rebound the ball, so that was the most glaring weakness.”

Of St. John’s 36 rebounds against Michigan, 23 came from the frontcourt of Ejiofor, Bryce Hopkins and Dillon Mitchell. Ruben Prey added four off the bench, and while Lefteris Liotopoulos contributed six boards, a majority of that work came in overtime when the Wolverines were attempting to close out the game. Backcourt rebounding has been a staple of the most successful Pitino teams, and with the Johnnies tipping off the season Monday against Quinnipiac, the deficit among the guards on the glass is being attacked with a sense of urgency.

“I’ve always had really good guards that rebounded,” Pitino emphasized. “That’s the weakness as I’m looking at the team right now. The guards don’t rebound. Our guards just have got to get tougher, they’ve gotta be meaner and tougher. And they will. Dillon and Bryce aren’t great block-out guys, they try to just go get it. The guards have got to have their backs and go rebound the ball. I’ve been very blessed in my coaching career with guards that rebound, and I’ve had a group here that doesn’t rebound the ball. We gotta do something about that.”

St. John’s transfer portal class led the nation in terms of its strength and overall talent, a collection of players fans came to embrace as a mega-haul in the offseason. But when overseeing such significant roster turnover, patience remains a virtue even in the instant gratification nature of society. Pitino is cognizant of both sides of the spectrum, confident that everything will come together, but his star senior appeared to be even more accountable and vigilant in his own approach.

“It’s early in the season, but like we said previously, we have a tough schedule ahead of us,” Ejiofor said. “So we have no time to waste in figuring it out. With 10 new guys or anything like that, it’s gonna be difficult, but we gotta figure it out. There’s no excuses. Winning is the standard we’re trying to build here at St. John’s. Everybody came here to win.”

“A lot of people are in the same boat we’re in with new players,” Pitino shared, citing the need to build a cohesive unit. “Next year’s team, there’ll be eight new players again. It’s just difficult, but I set the schedule tough because I want to find out what our weaknesses are. It’s a great teaching tool. They’re not together defensively, but they’re not together because they don’t know each other. But we gotta find out in a hurry. Alabama’s one of the fastest-shooting teams in America. We’ll make our corrections. It’ll be a fun team to coach.”