All the momentum was on St. John’s side.
An 11-point deficit had been erased. The fifth-ranked Johnnies now had the lead and the Garden was rocking like it was last March.
Just over eight minutes remained.
Then, in a flash, the game was turned upside down. Defensive lapses and quick shots followed. No. 15 Alabama scored 14 of the next 15 points, and pulled out an impressive 103-96 victory to hand the Red Storm their first loss of this season of high expectations.
“We played these early games so we can find out where we need to get better, and obviously we know we need to get better on one-on-one defense,” coach Rick Pitino said. “Disappointed we lost, but we certainly learned a lot, and we’ll get better from it.”
St. John’s had no answer for Alabama guards Labaron Philon and Aden Holloway, who combined for 46 points. They were hammered in the paint, 54-40, lost the rebounding battle and were outscored by 15 from 3-point range.
There were some good stretches, most notably a sustained second half spurt that gave the Johnnies the lead briefly, but not enough of them.
They spotted a strong team a big lead and paid for it. Alabama is the first non-conference opponent to score 100 against St. John’s since Niagara in 2004.
Zuby Ejiofor led St. John’s with 27 points and 10 rebounds, but 21 came in the first half. Bryce Hopkins added 19 points.
Ian Jackson and Oziyah Sellers each scored 14 after slow starts, while Joson Sanon missed six of seven shots from the field. St. John’s was without Dylan Darling, the lone traditional point guard on its roster, due to a calf strain. The backcourt struggled.
“Our guards didn’t play particularly well, but that’s because they have great guards,” Pitino said.
He added, “They’re tough to guard one-on-one and we didn’t do a good job of it. We didn’t do a good job of their slip pick-and-rolls, but they’re tough to guard. They really are.”
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Sellers jump-started an extended 19-7 run that gave St. John’s the lead, scoring six points and notching three assists in the burst. When Sanon made his first and only field goal of the night, a right-wing 3-pointer, the building exploded. St. John’s (1-1) had its first lead since the early going and 8:13 remained. From there, the offense stalled, and Alabama (2-0) built a four-point edge with 4:11 to go.
“We took the lead and we made a lot of fundamental mistakes down the stretch,” Pitino said. “Even Zuby and [Sadiku Ibine Ayo] — our captains — made fundamental bad mistakes when we took the lead.”
St. John’s couldn’t stay with the Alabama guards in the first half, allowing Holloway, Philon and Latrell Wrightstell Jr. to combine for 34 points on 13-for-22 shooting. They had their way with the Johnnies, getting penetration that creating open 3-point looks.
The Crimson Tide closed the first half on a 16-6 run, capped by a Holloway 3-pointer at the horn that gave Alabama a nine-point halftime edge. Their 53 first-half points were the most allowed by a Pitino-coached St. John’s team since his arrival three years ago.
“[Our defense] was poor today,” Ejiofor said.
Ejiofor and Hopkins scored 36 of the Red Storm’s 44 points. Sellers, Jackson and Sanon, meanwhile, shot 1-for-10 from the field with three turnovers. Really, St. John’s was fortunate to trail by just nine. They were outscored by eight points in the paint and 21 from beyond the 3-point line.
The Johnnies and Jackson started the second half well, quickly getting within two. But Alabama responded with nine straight points, pushing the lead to a then-game-high 11. St. John’s hung around, and even went ahead at one point, but Alabama always had an answer.
“You can go play somebody and win by 30 points — you see some of the scores last night — you get nothing out of that,” Pitino said. “I think we have the potential to be an outstanding basketball team. But as coach, I need to find out where our deficiencies lie, and I found out tonight. I also found out tonight they’re a group of guys who want to win badly, they just didn’t know how to do it.”
