St. John’s picked a bad time for its worst-ever loss to UConn.
With a chance to tighten its grip on the Big East, the Red Storm instead fell out of first place in the conference standings Wednesday with a sobering 72-40 defeat by the Huskies in Hartford.
No. 15 St. John’s surrendered an 18-0 run in the first half and a 16-0 run in the second half; missed its last 24 shots; and finished just 11-of-56 (19.6%) from the field at raucous PeoplesBank Arena.
The 32-point win marked UConn’s largest margin of victory ever against St. John’s, which entered the game on a 13-game winning streak.
With the dominant victory, No. 6 UConn (16-2 in conference play) pulled back ahead of St. John’s (15-2) by a half-game with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season.
“It’s all on me,” St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino said. “I’m very disappointed in our performance offensively, especially. Our sharing the ball, moving the ball.”
St. John’s arrived in Hartford with a chance to all but wrap up a Big East regular season title, having defeated UConn, 81-72, on Feb. 6 at Madison Square Garden in the teams’ first meeting of the season.
A win Wednesday would have given St. John’s a two-game advantage in the loss column and clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Huskies.
But St. John’s had no answer Wednesday for UConn center Tarris Reed Jr., who erupted for 20 points on 9-of-14 shooting, 11 rebounds and six blocks.
Reed won the big-man battle against Zuby Ejiofor, who managed only six points on 2-of-5 shooting with four rebounds for St. John’s.
It was a far cry from the matchup less than three weeks ago, when Ejiofor totaled 21 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and three blocks against the Huskies.
On Wednesday, UConn outscored St. John’s in the paint, 42-12. It scored 14 fastbreak points to the Red Storm’s 0.
And the Huskies committed only five turnovers — 10 fewer than in the previous meeting.
St. John’s was outmatched from start to finish, with UConn rattling off an early 9-0 run, and then pulling away with a separate 18-0 surge within the game’s first 14 minutes.
Standout freshman Braylon Mullins capped that run with a 3-pointer — his second of the first half — to put UConn up, 31-11, with 6:37 left before halftime.
When Ejiofor made a free throw on the next possession, it snapped a St. John’s scoreless drought of seven minutes and 23 seconds. The Johnnies missed 12 consecutive field goals during that stretch.
That free throw was Ejiofor’s only point of the first half, after which St. John’s trailed, 41-26.
The second half was even more lopsided, as Connecticut rode a 16-0 run to a 61-31 advantage. St. John’s went scoreless for 10 minutes and 47 seconds until Bryce Hopkins made a free throw.
But St. John’s did not make another field goal, meaning an Ejiofor lay-up with 17:28 left in the second half was the Johnnies’ final basket.
The Red Storm’s 40 points were the fewest ever by a Pitino-coached team in his 1,224 career games, according to CBS Sports.
“We didn’t play good offense,” Pitino said. “We did things that we’ve never done. Again, it’s something I’ve got to question about myself, and I will question it, because the team did not do the things we’ve done in the last 13 games.”
St. John’s still holds the tiebreaker over UConn for the Big East’s top seed, as it swept fifth-place Creighton — the highest-ranked conference opponent that both teams have faced twice — while the Huskies split with the Bluejays.
But the Red Storm have the harder remaining schedule, starting Saturday when they host third-place Villanova (13-4 in conference play), whom UConn swept.
St. John’s has three games remaining, while UConn has two: at home against Seton Hall (9-8) and on the road against Marquette (5-12).
“We’ll get ready for Villanova,” Pitino said. “We’re still playing for a league championship. It doesn’t matter whether you lose by one or 40. The league championship’s still at stake. Obviously, we’ve got to make our corrections and move on.”
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