The St. John’s Red Storm had a brilliant season under head coach Rick Pitino but it all came crashing down in the second round of the NCAA Tournament as Arkansas put on an impressive defensive performance and the Razorbacks pulled out a 75-66 victory.
The Red Storm played a strong defensive game and Pitino’s team was competitive throughout, but St. John’s suffered through a historically bad shooting day. While the Razorbacks deserve credit for the way they attacked Red Storm shooters, the offensive numbers for Pitino’s team were embarrassing.
The second-seeded Red Storm shot 28 percent from the field. They connected on 21 of 75 shots overall and a remarkably inefficient 2 of 22 (9.1 percent) from beyond the arc.
Those numbers assured continuation of a trend for teams that struggle with shooting. Teams shooting under 30% from the field and under 10% from beyond the arc are 0-11 all-time in the NCAA Tournament.
No team seeded in the top 4 had ever missed as many as the 54 shots that St. John’s recorded.
Pitino was clearly disappointed by his team’s poor shooting performance.
“I hate to see them go out this way,” Pitino said, per the Associated Press. “We thought we were championship-driven in our minds, but I have been disappointed before with this. You hate to see us play like that.
“I don’t mind going out with a loss, I just hate to see us play that way offensively,” he said. “It’s just a bitter pill to swallow with that type of performance.”
St. John’s came into the tournament on a roll, but could not sustain their success
The Red Storm was viewed as one of the most dangerous teams in the tournament. They had little trouble in the opening round as they drummed 15th-seeded Omaha by an 83-53 margin. That was the 10th consecutive victory for St. John’s, the victors in the Big East tournament a week earlier.
Zuby Ejiofor was the only St. John’s starter to have a good shooting game against the Razorbacks as he connected on 7 of 12 shots from the field and scored 23 points. Meanwhile, Big East player of the year R.J. Lewis scored just 9 point on brutal 3 of 17 shooting.
The loss had to hurt Pitino even more because it came against his long-time rival John Calipari. Both men had coached at Kentucky and both coaches are extremely competitive with each other.
Arkansas improved to 22-13 with the victory as Calipari’s team was a 6.5-point underdog coming into the game. Arkansas moves on to the third round of the tournament where the Razorbacks will play Texas Tech, a 77-64 winner over Drake.
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