St. John’s is all business in quarterfinal romp over Providence

Bryce Hopkins flushes dunk as part of double-double in St. John’s win over Providence in Big East tournament quarterfinals. (Photo by St. John’s Athletics)

By Sam Federman (@Sam_Federman)

NEW YORK — A month ago, St. John’s and Providence played one of the most emotional games of the season. Duncan Powell was ejected for a dirty play on Bryce Hopkins, and five other players got tossed in the ensuing moments. From there, the Johnnies, professionals they are, calmed down and went on a run to win the game by double digits.

In the first matchup between the two since then, St. John’s continued its momentum from that second half.

Rick Pitino’s Johnnies were strictly business, taking a 20-point first-half lead, and cruising to an 85-72 win over the Friars to advance to the Big East tournament semifinals. It’s no surprise for a veteran group that has remained steady as it should over the last few months.

This isn’t one of the best teams that Pitino has coached. It doesn’t compare to his national championship teams at Kentucky and Louisville, but it knows who it is, how it wins, and what it needs to do to win.

“When they had a bad game (against UConn), they handled it like pros,” Pitino said. “They don’t know why it happened, they were ready emotionally and physically, they just ran into a better team that night and what did they do? They came back against a good (Villanova) team and won by 32.”

“They act like professionals, they conduct themselves like professionals.”

So there was never going to be an emotional hangover for the first game of the Big East tournament. There was never going to be a slow start against a team that it had figured out its formula against. St. John’s was going to control the game from the first tip, and that’s exactly what it did.

Providence, playing with tired legs after the late afternoon matchup with Butler on Wednesday, ran into a physically prepared group and had no answers. The Friars didn’t make a field goal for over six minutes to start the game, and went down 20-5 in the first seven minutes.

When Zuby Ejiofor came out of the game for the first time, Providence made three consecutive layups, and Pitino called a timeout to put Ejiofor right back in the game. St. John’s responded with five quick points.

St. John’s was aggressive running the Friars off the three-point line, and with its supreme physical advantage inside the arc and on the glass, Providence’s offense struggled to find any sort of space. It’s the right formula against a Friar team that wins with its off-the-dribble jump shooters, who found space against drop coverage against Butler on Wednesday.

“I said the only way they’re gonna beat us is from the three-point line,” Pitino said. “So we were not going to let them have that edge.”

“You got to prepare quickly, move fast, and just go over everything,” Oziyah Sellers said. “So we watched a lot of our mistakes from previous games, found out things we can do better, and we went out there and tried to execute that.”

Providence attempted a season-low 14 threes. The three teams that have forced the Friars to attempt fewer than 18 threes – Florida, St. John’s, and UConn – are the three best defenses that the team faced all season.

And in a game played in the paint against a physical team, the Friars were overmatched.

“Since our game here January 3,” Kim English said of St. John’s, “they really doubled down on defense and rebounding in the paint, playing the three bigs. They’re dominating the possession game. This looks like a trend around college basketball. If you look at the best teams, the Arizonas, Floridas, Houstons, they’re doubling down on playing big.”

St. John’s attempted 77 field goals to Providence’s 56 thanks to going plus-21 on the glass, including 18 offensive rebounds. Hopkins and Ejiofor each finished with double-doubles.

The 13 rebounds was a season-high for Hopkins, and his third double-double of the last seven games after not having any in the first 25 games of the year.

“We’re physical, and we try to impose that night-in and night-out,” Hopkins said.

Pitino praised Hopkins’ professionalism as well.

“The thing I love about Bryce, is when he didn’t block out and made a bad defensive play,” Pitino said. “He said, ‘That’s my fault, coach, it’s not going to happen again.’ No excuses, no signs of weakness, just owned up to it and we moved on.”

While not flashy, that professionalism and consistency is St. John’s superpower. When it plays in the Big East semifinal on Friday night and the scene at Madison Square Garden is what we know it will be, St. John’s will be what we know it to be. Prepared, physical, and professional.