Costly miscues from St. John’s rear their head in disappointing loss to Providence

Rick Pitino and St. John’s will go back to drawing board after Red Storm was done in by defensive breakdowns and inability to make shots in loss to Providence Saturday. (Photo by St. John’s Athletics)

NEW YORK — As St. John’s has attempted to balance the expectations that came from its highest-ever preseason ranking in program history with a highly touted transfer class, the marriage between the two has had its ups and downs almost halfway through the season.

Now 9-5 after Saturday’s 77-71 loss to Providence, head coach Rick Pitino was visibly chagrined by the litany of breakdowns that contributed to the setback, one in which the Red Storm surrendered two double-digit leads in the second half. St. John’s will look to turn the page ahead of a weeklong road trip for games against Butler and Creighton that suddenly become more critical to a resume that is losing valuable opportunities to be bolstered in Big East play.

“This is not last year’s team,” Pitino reiterated Saturday. “We have high hopes, but what I’m noticing right now is a team that has a lot of frailties. It showed tonight for the first time that guys are worried about the missed shot rather than being meticulous about scouting. We did some things from a scouting standpoint that we haven’t done all year.”

On an afternoon where Johnnies not named Zuby Ejiofor shot a combined 12-for-55, the senior forward’s dominant 33 points and 15 rebounds fell by the wayside. St. John’s was unable to hold the 62-52 lead it built after Bryce Hopkins’ three-point play with 7:52 to play in regulation, and could not maintain a 68-63 advantage with under three minutes remaining as the Friars closed the game on a 14-3 run.

The game-changing spurt began on an uncharacteristic four-point play by freshman Stefan Vaaks, who drew a foul on Dylan Darling with the shot clock winding down to start the unraveling among the host side.

“You can’t foul a 3-point shooter,” Pitino lamented. “It’s insanity. You can’t not block out in a two-point game. You can’t get beat over the top, you can’t make a turnover on a high-low and be short. It was a collective bunch of guys that just had a bad night.”

“Except for Zuby, every single player had their worst night of the season, and it mushroomed into overflowing with the defensive mistakes. I can live with the fact that you have an off night. I can’t live with the fact that you made those defensive mistakes at the end of the game: Not switching, not blocking out, fouling a 3-point shooter, getting beat one-on-one with a crossover move. All those things are extremely bothersome because the game is on the line.”

St. John’s (9-5, 2-1 Big East) had by far its best home attendance of the season, with a partisan 19,047 — a wide majority of whom were clad in red — packing Madison Square Garden. However, the small but vocal Providence sections in the stands made themselves heard throughout the afternoon, prompting Pitino to remark that the crowd was “50 percent Providence” by virtue of the Friar faithful’s enthusiasm. However, the advantage in numbers did little to quell the uncharacteristic off day of a team that made only 20 of its 71 field goal attempts.

“We just lost our confidence when we kept missing, and they just wanted to feed Zuby the ball every time down the court because they lost their confidence,” Pitino remarked. “It was just a one-man show tonight. Only one guy had it. They got very tight because they were having an off night offensively. What I kept telling them was, defense will win this game, and we did everything wrong defensively with the game on the line. It wasn’t one person, it was everybody making a mistake.”

“It was disappointing by us, disappointing all the way around, and now our backs are to the wall very early in the season.”

Pitino clarified that statement when asked what the prospective way out of this adversity would be, offering a simple remedy while diagnosing a potentially painful truth in the moment.

“We gotta win,” he deadpanned. “When I say back to the wall, it’s because our record’s not good. We lost at home, so it’s not a good situation, but we gotta dig out. Our veterans did not make good defensive plays down the stretch. Anybody in this league can beat us. Anybody. There’s not a team in this league that can’t beat us.”

“On a night where we had our worst offensive performance of the season, we had to be almost perfect defensively. Down the stretch, we were anything but perfect. We’re not gonna get down, we’re gonna try to get better. Like I’ve said all along, this is a good, decent team, they’re gonna play hard. Tonight, they didn’t play smart, and it cost us.”