In the Big East, the titanic clashess between UConn and St. John’s has been circled on the calendars of college basketball fans for months.
After UConn fell to St. John’s at Madison Square Garden in the first bout earlier this month, the Huskies muddled their way through four more games going into a re-match in Hartford.
Meanwhile, the Red Storm of St. John’s entered on a 13-game heater and the nation’s second longest winning streak.
Despite going into a hostile environment, the Johnnies’ physical game and disruptive defense should have made this an enthralling contest – especially since the winner of this matchup would take the lead in the Big East regular season title race.
What followed was one of the most lopsided games of basketball in the conference’s history as St. John’s horrific second-half shooting performance resulted in a 72-40 defeat as the Red Storm failed to hit a shot across the final 17 minutes.
While this Huskies team managed to find a way to play its best basketball of the year, it leaves St. John’s desperate for answers after a humiliating loss that defies logic.
No. 6 UConn eviscerated No. 15 St. John’s in a revenge match that defied expectations
The re-match between Dan Hurley’s (L) Huskies and Rick Pitino’s (R) Red Storm was a blowout
UConn’s defense smothered St. John’s in both halves – but especially dominated the second
The Huskies had gone into February battered, yet not broken. They’d struggled against weaker Big East teams, but held on to stay undefeated through the first 12 games of conference play.
And then they played St. John’s at Madison Square Garden. It was a brutal game for Connecticut as the Johnnies disrupted possession after possession, causing turnover after turnover and overwhelming the Huskies.
The Red Storm hadn’t been perfect like the Huskies were in that early February meeting. They tripped up in all of their major non-conference games and even lost their first home Big East game of the season against Providence.
But after falling to the Friars, the Johnnies finally found their footing. Despite early season worries over a lack of a strong point guard, Rick Pitino’s Red Storm recovered and won every Big East game they played going into Wednesday’s matchup in Hartford.
The surging Red Storm found a pair of players who grew into their roles as time went on. While big man Zuby Ejiofor’s return gave Pitino a clear man to build around, Cincinnati transfer Dillon Mitchell and Idaho State guard Dylan Darling each carved out niches for themselves in the system.
While certainly not a disaster, UConn’s response after the loss at the Garden lacked the necessary punch of a top-five team. They ended up suffering their second loss of the season to a poor Creighton squad as starters like center Tarris Reed and deep threat Solo Ball were hot and cold in the following games.
It was far from the UConn team that nearly outlasted a top-ranked Arizona despite being injured. Or the UConn unit which put on a second-half clinic against Illinois. Or the Huskies that did the near-impossible and beat Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse.
While the ability of the team didn’t disappear overnight, the question of approach and mentality began to pop up. Rolling from one night into the next required a change in both those – and off the back of a dominant win on the road to Villanova, Connecticut looked to cement that momentum.
UConn center Tarris Reed dunks the ball uncontested in the first half against St. John’s
A first half rarely tells the story of a game, but it was hard to not write the book on this contest before 12 minutes had even elapsed.
The caliber of UConn’s display hadn’t been seen by home fans for a while, but they raced out to a 31-11 lead by the six minute mark of the first half after going on an 18-0 run.
A rowdy PeoplesBank Arena nearly blew the roof off when senior Alex Karaban knocked down a crucial triple before throwing down a monstrous fast-break dunk.
On the ensuing defensive possession, center Tarris Reed swatted a Hopkins shot aside before the Huskies raced up the floor and backup guard Malachi Smith delivered a tough and-one layup to send the crowd into hysterics.
Connecticut went into the half up 41-26 as St. John’s looked to re-group in the locker room.
But, they didn’t re-group. In fact, this may go down as the worst performance this St. John’s team ever played under Pitino.
They turned the ball over, they couldn’t rebound, they didn’t move the ball and they shot like Stormtroopers.
In short, not only was this an entirely different team from the one that hammered the Huskies at Madison Square Garden – this team looked out of its league.
When the Johnnies are ‘on’ they can guard with the best of them. But if the wheels fell off the bus when they allowed Connecticut to shoot 48 percent from the floor in the first half, the second half represented that bus sliding down a hill, off a cliff and into a volcano.
After Zuby Ejiofor scored a layup with 17:28 left in the first half, the Johnnies went on a scoring drought that made the Sahara Desert look like an ocean. It took a Bryce Hopkins free throw to end that drought which clocked in at an unheard of 10 minutes and 47 seconds.
By game’s end, St. John’s was resigned to only scoring free throws as they didn’t hit a single field goal since Ejiofor’s aforementioned layup.
MORE TO FOLLOW.
