Three-pointers have been St. John's arc nemesis
St. John's Red Storm guard Kadary Richmond shoots for a basket against the Butler Bulldogs in the second half of a Big East men’s basketball game at Carnesecca Arena on Jan. 4. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
St. John’s went into Saturday night’s Big East matchup with Villanova with a 13-3 record and a 4-1 mark in the Big East, only the second time in 14 years it has gotten off to that fast a start. Still, there was no looking away from the blight on the Red Storm. They’d been epically bad shooting three-pointers.
In their five conference games, they had shot 11-for-74 (14.9%) from outside the arc, twice as bad as the second-worst team among the 11. Is it a curse on their house, a fatal flaw destined to do them in at some point down the road?
The belief here is that their terrible three-point shooting may be an issue today and a blessing tomorrow.
St. John’s coach Rick Pitino has said after the past three games that the Red Storm aren’t taking bad three-point shots, as they did early on. And for those who believe players eventually revert to the mean, they eventually are likely to shoot better.
But in the meantime, there has been a transformation. St. John’s has figured out how to win without this weapon that so many teams deploy. They shoot badly on the perimeter and use exceptional offensive rebounding to get more shots and more second-chance points than any other team in the Big East. And their defense was ranked sixth in the country entering play Saturday, according to respected metrics from KenPom.com.
The Red Storm can win without a weapon. Imagine what they can be when the three-point shooting comes around. And at some point, it seems bound to come around.
St. John’s is hampered by the absence of Brady Dunlap, a sophomore forward and three-point specialist who is recovering from December left hand surgery and battling a recent abdominal tear. But Simeon Wilcher made 42% of his three-point attempts, Deivon Smith 41% and Aaron Scott 37% last season. The Red Storm aren’t this bad a three-point shooting team.
“We're going through a slump right now,” Zuby Ejiofor said Friday. “It's basketball. It's going to happen . . . We have a whole lot of excellent three-point shooters on this team. Scott . . . is one of the best shooters on this team. Simeon Wilcher, Deivon, all those guys, they could really shoot the ball . . . I have no doubt that we're going to find our shot.”
Forget that for a moment. Perhaps the most important thing that Pitino has created is a new mindset for his players. He has long said that they “deflate” after a failed possession and let it bleed into the one after that and the one after that — but that old mindset is gone.
Pitino has said he’s never coached a team that won this way, with so many missed shots. And that makes sense because he and this Red Storm team have turned many ideas upside down. Losses are supposed to be the teaching moments. Pitino has changed wins into teaching moments. The players are seeing that they can win when they compensate for unplanned failures.
Pitino felt it sunk in during last Saturday's win over Butler when he told them: “I said, 'This has to stop . . . If you want to concern yourself with missed shots, then you're going to lose. If you want to do something about your missed shots, offensive rebound.’ And they got the message.”
Clearly. St. John’s 14.8 offensive rebounds per game is 11th in the nation, according to NCAA.com, and leads all Big East teams.
“My shot hasn't been falling [and] I’ve just got to find other ways to impact the game,” Scott said. “Getting offensive rebounds, getting steals, blocks — I just want to impact the game in a winning way.”
The mindset began with Ejiofor, who has used his work ethic to transform himself from a role player into one of the very best big men in the Big East.
“There was a one-man club,” Pitino said, referring to Ejiofor. “[Sadiku Ibine Ayo] joined Zuby and [Smith] joined those two. And then [Wilcher] joined and everybody's joining Zuby’s club of incredible work ethic . . . It starts out with a one-man band, and now they have a very large band.”
A band that can find ways to win and is likely to find even more along the way.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
