Villanova (MSG), Wed., Jan. 24, 8:30p, FS-1

1st Game Recap

Joel Soriano leads the Red Storm with 20 points and eight rebounds en route to its first win over the Wildcats at Finneran Pavilion since 1993

VILLANOVA, Pa. –Joel Soriano recorded a team-high 20 points and eight rebounds to lead the St. John's men's basketball team (11-4, 3-1) to its third win in its first four BIG EAST contests on Saturday with an 81-71 victory over Villanova (10-5, 3-1). The Johnnies led wire-to-wire for the third time in as many conference wins this season and earned their first win at Finneran Pavilion since 1993.

The Red Storm scored the first 10 points of the contest and never looked back as St. John's rolled to its third-straight victory. Daniss Jenkins and Brady Dunlaphelped power the Johnnies' early surge hitting a pair of three-pointers to push the team out to a double-digit advantage by the 16:39 mark.

Dunlap finished with 15 points shooting 5-for-8 from the field with three 3-pointers in his first career start. Jenkins delivered a superb performance posting 15 points, five assists and three steals in the Red Storm's first BIG EAST road victory of the season.

St. John's opened a 15-point lead 11 minutes into the contest with Zuby Ejioforproviding instant energy off the bench on both ends of the floor. The 6-foot-9 sophomore forward helped set the tone in one of the Johnnies most dominant performances of the season. Ejiofor made a highlight reel block of TJ Bamba at the rim before throwing down an alley-oop to put the Red Storm, 24-9.

The Johnnies carried a 34-28 advantage into the break behind 10 points from Soriano. RJ Luis Jr. recorded seven of his 11 points in the opening frame and finished with seven rebounds in his fourth appearance of the season.

Glenn Taylor Jr. helped power an 8-0 run in the early stages of the second half with a pair of layups to push the Red Storm ahead 44-30 at 16:02. The 6-foot-6 junior wing also grabbed four rebounds over 20 minutes of action in his 13th start of the season.

After the Wildcats responded with six straight points minutes later, the Johnnies hit six of their next eight shots beginning with Dunlap 3-pointer to reclaim a double-digit advantage. St. John's lead grew as large as 17 after Jenkins scored five points in seven seconds to go up 67-50 with 5:26 remaining. The graduate transfer from Iona converted a 3-point play before making a steal in the backcourt for an easy layup.

Villanova cut the Red Storm's lead to 10 with a 7-0 run capped by a pair of layups from Bamba, but Dunlap answered with the dagger, hitting a corner 3-pointer at 2:44 to put the game out of reach. It marked the second-straight game Dunlap finished in double figures, as the freshman from Newhall, Calif., has shot 10-for-15 from the field in the past two games.

Bamba led the Wildcats with 23 points, shooting 8-for-14 from the floor. Mark Armstrong and Eric Dixon each had 14 points in Villanova's first BIG EAST loss of the season.

As a team, St. John's shot 47.5 percent (29-61 FG) from the field and went 7-for-16 (43.8 percent) from distance. The Johnnies held Villanova to 21.4 percent (6-28 3FG) from 3-point territory.
 
The biggest key for St. John's in this game is Chris Ledlum being available unlike the first matchup. I thought he played a fantastic game against Marquette and between him, Joel and Zuby they should be able to give Eric Dixon fits. Clearly what they did in the first match up worked, holding Dixon to 4-18 from the floor sooooo lets hope to do that again. Villanova will have Justin Moore back

Against DePaul Moore played 23 minutes but only scored 2 pts on 1-6 shooting (they won by 25)
Against Marquette he played 30 mins and scored 8 pts on 3-7 shooting (they lost by 13)
Against UConn he played his best going 7-9 from the floor, 15 pts in 30 mins in a 1 point loss

So doesn't seem like any kind of mins restriction or anything like that. He is one of their main ball handlers and will be an interesting assignment without Alleyne, I think that will be Taylor or Jenkins in a man to man situation.

It's as close to a must win situation as you're gonna face in January due to the last 3 losses, gotta get right. We handled them on their home court while being undermanned, do it again and protect your home court. Need Joel to find his game. He thoroughly outplayed Dixon in the first one dropping 20 pts and 8 boards, gonna need him to recapture that magic again as he was such a catalyst to SJU starting league play 4-1.
Hopefully its Taylor.

With Alleyne out for some time, he is now our best defensive stopper IMO.
 
I’m never gonna say we “dodged a bullet” by not getting a kid who isn’t getting time in his true freshman season. Especially when there’s a preseason injury involved

That USC team is an absolute mess. Not sure the full story on what’s going on with Gardner there, but I don’t trust that USC staff to develop any talent.

If Gardner transfers from them after the season, I wouldn’t mind if Van picked up the phone…
Would agree, bloom is long off the rose with Enfield…kudos to him leveraging 1 run with FGCU.
 
This game is a decent test of my theory that "they are who we thought they were."

Have always felt that their math was roughly:

-Win 4 vs Georgetown and DePaul
-Win 5 home games vs Butler, X, Providence, Nova, Hall
-Win 1 road game against those 5
-Win 1 vs UConn, Marquette, Creighton

Thus far they are right on schedule.

Blemishes are a disappointing no show vs Hall and squandered chances vs all 3 of the Big 3.

Need to beat Nova to stay on schedule - and I think it's going to be a tough game as I expect Nova to show up for this one.

There are other pathways, but directionally they remain on target for 19 wins.
This is how I’ve always seen the season. Nova game is huuuuge for this reason.
 
I guess we disagree, I see some talent, but not a lot. Just compare our guards to top 5 or 6 BE teams re offensive talent. Anyway, the talent level is somewhat moot if effort and attention to detail is lacking. That is not satisfactory at this point imo.
We have bottom 3-4 guard play in conference. Pitino will deserve a medal if he gets this group to the tournament.
 
Back
Top