December 19, 2018
The St. John's men's basketball team rolled to its most lopsided victory of the season on Wednesday night, blowing past St. Francis Brooklyn, 86-52, and improving to 11-0 on the campaign.
The Red Storm, one of just nine unbeaten teams remaining in the nation, continued its best start since 1982-83, when the Johnnies won a school record 14-straight games to begin the campaign.
St. Francis Brooklyn's 52 were points were the fewest allowed by St. John's this season. The Terriers (7-5) also aided the Red Storm in registering season-best marks for opponent field goal percentage (27.7%) and three-point field goal percentage (16.7%).
On the offensive end, the Red Storm featured a well-balanced attack that saw 11 of the 13 players who dressed find the bottom of the bucket with no one Johnnie recording more than 13 points.
The Johnnies also dominated the glass, grabbing a season-high 49 rebounds. In the second half, St. John's outboarded St. Francis by a 28-14 margin.
LJ Figueroa and Mikey Dixon led the way with 13 points apiece. Figueroa narrowly missed his fourth double-double of the season with nine boards and a pair of steals, while Dixon notched his second-highest point total as a Johnnie on 5-of-9 shooting from the field.
Shamorie Ponds needed only 25 minutes of action to piece together an impressive stat line, tallying 12 points, five assists, five rebounds and two steals. The junior guard moved into 15th place on the St. John's all-time scoring list, passing Anthony Glover (1,434) with his fifth point of the night.
Marvin Clark II seemed to be everywhere for St. John's on Wednesday, posting 12 points on 3-of-5 shooting in addition to tallying seven rebounds, four assists and four blocks. His four helpers set a new career-high while his four rejections matched a career best set during his freshman season at Michigan State in 2014-15 against Santa Clara.
Mustapha Heron and Justin Simon also added solid efforts in the win. Heron finished with eight points and six boards, while Simon posted six points, seven rebounds and two assists.
The Red Storm's trio of freshmen enjoyed a Carnesecca Arena coming-out party. Greg Williams Jr. sank his first four shot attempts en route to posting eight points with three rebounds in 16 minutes of action. Marcellus Earlington needed just four minutes of playing time to record seven points and five rebounds, draining a triple in transition to put an exclamation point on the victory. Josh Roberts rounded out the batch of impressive rookie performances, grabbing two boards and throwing down a dunk.
Justin Cole, Brandon Lawrence and Jay Camus also saw the floor, as Cole drained midrange jumper for his first field goal of the season in the final minutes.
Trailing 6-4 near the 16-minute mark of the first half, St. John's rattled off a 10-0 run to open its first sizeable lead of the contest. Simon capped the tear with a thunderous one-handed slam, pulling down a rebound and taking it the length of the floor before jamming it home.
The Red Storm continued its scoring spurt over the next few minutes, extending the run to 22-6 and taking a 26-12 lead with just under eight minutes to go in the period.
The Terriers used a 7-1 tear to cut the St. John's lead to single digits with 4:52 to go, but the Johnnies built their lead back to 12 at the break thanks to a 30-foot buzzer beater off the glass from Dixon to make it 37-25 in favor of the Red Storm.
The Johnnies kept their momentum going on the other side of the intermission, scoring the second half's first eight points to open up a 20-point edge, 45-25, with just over two and a half minutes gone in the stanza.
St. John's built its lead as high as 33 on a pair of occasions near the midway mark of the half before St. Francis knocked it back down to 22 with less than six minutes to go. That was as close as the Terriers would get, as the Red Storm jumped ahead by 34 on Earlington's triple to end the contest.
The Red Storm will contest its final non-conference game before the start of BIG EAST play on Saturday, hosting Sacred Heart for an 8 p.m. showdown.