Tough Loss on the Road in Connecticut
On Wednesday night, January 12th, the Red Storm went to Harry A. Gampel Pavillion in Storrs, Connecticut to take on the UConn Huskies. Both teams were coming off tough losses against Big East foes and looking to get back on track. This game would end up coming down to the wire and was a classic Big East hard-fought battle.
St. John’s was heading into this game coming off a road loss to the Providence Friars, the 16th ranked team in the nation, where they once led by 7 and had a 3-point lead at halftime. So, the Johnnies were going this matchup trying to wash the bad taste that the 2nd half of the Providence game left in their mouths. The first half a scrappy half where neither team played tremendously well on the offensive side where the Red Storm only shot 36.4% from the field while the Huskies coughed the ball up 9 times. Julian Champagnie did his thing in the first half which was the main reason the Johnnies stuck around as he carried the load scoring 12 points on 5-9 shooting. Center Joel Soriano helped by adding 6 points although he had to leave the first half early as he picked up 2 quick fouls. Overall, it was a tough first half for St. John’s as the Huskies had 6 blocks at half and the guard duo of Posh Alexander and Dylan Addae-Wusu had an especially troublesome time finishing at the rim as they combined for 2-13 from the field and a total of 4 points. But despite the offensive troubles the Red Storm were still in it as they were down 36-31 as time expired in the first half.
As the second half started UConn grew their lead to 11 points with a score of 50-39 after a dunk by the Huskies star big man Adama Sanogo. The defense for St. John’s took over in the second half as after the Sanogo slam, they stopped UConn from scoring until almost the 10-minute mark. The Red Storm defense continued to impress as buckets were few and far between for the Huskies but even though they were forcing turnovers and getting stops they couldn’t close the gap. Eventually, just below the 4-minute make with the help of Aaron Wheeler off the bench and Julian Champagnie the Red Storm came back to make it just a 2-point game. The teams kept going back and forth and the ball ended up in Champagnie’s hands with 14 second where he hit a DAGGER from deep and gave the Johnnies a one-point lead with 4 seconds left. Although that lead would be short lived as the Huskies star center got a rebound and was fouled where he hit 1 of 2 free throws to push the score to 71-71 and send the game to overtime. That is where the game got away from St. John’s quickly and UConn handed the Johnnies their second loss in a row with the final score of 86-78.
The overall problem of the game was the Red Storm’s borderline pathetic performance in the paint, they had 14 of their shots blocked and only 24 points in the paint. They had many opportunities to score from turnovers and missed shots but with Sanogo manning the paint and the missed shots when weren’t blocked were enough to make a difference in this game. St. John’s is a team that likes to run and get a lot of points in transition but can have problems doing so when going up against athletic teams such as UConn that can run with them. So, the combination of the missed points near the rim, UConn’s ability to get back on defense, and the lack of scoring outside of Champagnie led to the loss of a very winnable game on the road. The missed shots in the paint should be able to be fixed but in order to contend in the Big East and fight for a tournament spot, the Red Storm will absolutely have to improve in their halfcourt offense with players moving without the ball and other guys will have to step up and help take some of the offensive load off Champagnie’s shoulders.
St. John’s will be able to break the two-game losing streak as they host Georgetown at the Garden on Sunday in a very winnable game. Although it is very early into conference play, this is a game the Red Storm can’t afford to let slip through their fingers with 4 of their 5 opponents after Sunday being ranked as of now. The Johnnies are now 1-2 in conference play and will look to get back into the win column on Sunday at 4:30 in the Garden as they take on the Georgetown Hoyas.