‘Scrappy’ St. John’s on a roll after wins over Duke, ’Nova
PHILADELPHIA » Villanova point guard Jalen Brunson took his time making the walk from the postgame press conference to the locker room following Wednesday’s stunning 79-75 loss to St. John’s at the Wells Fargo Center.
As painful as this loss was, it’s not like it came out of the blue, even though the Red Storm was winless in the Big East.
St. John’s was coming off an 8177 victory over then No. 4 Duke, so you really couldn’t question the Red Storm’s ability to pull off the upset. On top of that, St. John’s gave the top-ranked Wildcats trouble a month ago before falling, 78-71. So the Red Storm (12-13 overall, 1-11 Big East) more than proved they could hang with the top teams in the land.
But the most stunning part of this upset was that St. John’s was in control basically from the start and that doesn’t happen often against this Villanova team. Usually, it’s the Wildcats who impose their will on the opposition, but not on this night.
Even when Villanova fought back to tie the game at 41-41 in the second half, St. John’s countered with a 6-0 run and never lost the lead after that.
“You have to give them credit,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “They just outplayed us.”
The Wildcats did not make any excuses. Starting forward Eric Paschall missed the game with a concussion and could be out a week, but Wright and the Wildcats refused to blame the loss on his absence. On this night, St. John’s was better. It was as simple as that.
“They are just a great team,” Brunson said. “They have good depth and are coached by one of the greatest players of all time. They are just scrappy. They have great length and strong will which made this game a tough one.”
Brunson was referring to coach Chris Mullin, who was a senior at St. John’s in 1985 the last time the Red Storm knocked off the No. 1 team in the land. That’s the same year Villanova won its first national title and three Big East teams made the Final Four.
The victory over the Wildcats marked the first time in program history that St. John’s knocked off teams ranked in the top five in back-to-back games, quite a feat for a team that was 0-11 in the conference, but even that record was a little deceiving.
Eight of those losses were by eight points or less. And despite the losing streak, St. John’s has been playing pretty good defense lately, which was one of the differences Wednesday.
The Johnnies didn’t give Villanova’s 3-point shooters room to breathe, let along get a shot off. The Wildcats (22-2, 9-2) shot 24 percent from 3-point range, their worst performance from deep since they only made 21 percent of their attempts in the second opener against Columbia. Take away Collin Gillespie’s 4-for-6 effort from beyond the arc and the percentage falls to 14.8 percent.
Jalen Brunson was 2-for-11. Mikal Bridges 1-for-5, Donte DiVincenzo 0-for-5 before fouling out, and Omari Spellman went 1-for-6 from deep after a 6-for-7 performance in Sunday’s win over Seton Hall.
“They did a great job defensively on us,” Wright said. “They forced us into one-on-one situations where we didn’t create any easy shots for each other, and they do that. That’s what they do.”
The Red Storm also get to the rim, which was the problem on the other end for the Wildcats, even though Villanova did have a 34-28 advantage in points in the paint. It wasn’t how many times the Johnnies got to the rim, but when.
“We’ve had difficulty defending all year and they’re about as good as it gets in terms of isolating oneon-one,” Wright said. “And there were a couple of big plays when they isolated one-on-one (and missed) and we didn’t come up with the rebound. They shot 56 percent in the first half. We struggled with them up there and it was the same struggle here, basically just defending the ball one-on-one.
“We weren’t able to guard them,” Wright added. “You could see down the stretch when they got the lead they just spread it out, they picked the matchup they wanted and went one-on-one and they scored.”
*** It was a lose one, gain one day for the Wildcats. While Paschall may miss a week as he goes through the concussion protocol, forward Jermaine Samuels returned to action after missing 10 games with a broken bone. Samuels suffered the injury in Villanova’s 103-85 victory over DePaul Dec. 27. Ironically, he had the best game of his career before getting hurt with 11 points, three rebounds and a blocked shot.
The 6-6 freshman practiced for the first time Tuesday and saw limited action against the Red Storm. He entered the game with 10:18 to play in the first half. And though he looked lost on offense at times, he made his presence felt on the defensive end. Shamorie Ponds appeared to have a clear path to the basket for an easy bucket, but Samuels was there to swat the attempt away.
Samuels came back in when DiVincenzo fouled out and grabbed a huge offensive rebound and fed Gillespie for a 3-pointer to get the Wildcats within 74-73 with 23.2 seconds left.
*** NOTES » Bridges became the 65th player in Villanova history to score 1,000 points in a career when he dunked home a missed 3-pointer by Gillespie early in the second half. … With Paschall out as he goes through the concussion protocol, Brunson and Bridges are the only two players who have started all 23 games for the Wildcats. … Next up for the Wildcats is Butler Saturday. The Bulldogs have won the last three meetings.