St. John’s seeks improved guard play vs. Harvard
Silas Demary Jr. is playing for UConn and Xaivian Lee is handling point guard duties for Florida. If Rick Pitino had his way, he would be coaching one of those transfers instead of lamenting St. John's struggling with point guard play.
Pitino hopes to avoid talking about backcourt woes Tuesday night when St. John's welcomes Harvard to New York.
St. John's was No. 5 in the preseason poll but struggled with its nonconference schedule and was No. 22 when it was outscored 53-34 in the second half of Saturday's 78-66 loss to Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta. The Red Storm fell out of the latest rankings Monday.
The Red Storm (7-4), who are 4-0 against non-high-majors this season, are coming off one of their least effective showings on offense. Against Kentucky, St. John's scored its second-fewest points this season and shot a season-worst 33.3%.
It was the Red Storm's lowest field goal percentage in a regular-season game since shooting 31.1% in a 66-63 loss to Georgia on Nov. 24, 2024 in the Bahamas.
Ian Jackson started at point guard for the third straight time since supplanting Dylan Darling. Jackson has scored 34 points while shooting 12-of-25 but has only seven assists in those games.
"We don't have somebody coming in like him," Pitino said of point guards like Demary and Lee, whom he pursued in the transfer portal. "That's our fault as a staff for not having a big-time point guard that makes people better. That's a big factor with us right now.
"That's our fault in recruiting. We lost out on four different big-time point guards that we went after, and we've got to make the best of a situation by collectively (having) other people handling the ball and bringing it up."
Bryce Hopkins and Zuby Ejiofor combined for 25 points against Kentucky. The duo combined to shoot 7-of-22, including 2-of-8 from 3-point range.
"I feel like every person on the team's just got to look themselves in the mirror and just realize that in order to have a successful season, we got to be able to make some changes in our character and ourselves personally," Ejiofor said. "Everybody's just really got to be committed to doing whatever it takes to win, as we did last year."
Harvard (6-6) is playing its third game against a power-conference opponent. The Crimson took a four-point loss at Penn State on Nov. 19 and a 13-point loss at Boston College on Nov. 26.
Harvard is 2-5 in its past seven games but avoided a third straight defeat by beating Holy Cross 81-53 at home on Saturday after being idle since Dec. 6. The Crimson shot a season-best 59.6% and hit 7 of 14 3-pointers.
Austin Hunt came off the bench to score 19 points while Tey Barbour added 18. Chandler Pigge and Robert Hinton contributed 16 apiece in Harvard's second-most lopsided margin of victory.
"I think we kind of settled in after this kind of little break we've been on and worked on moving the ball, getting into our offense, getting the right shots, getting shots for our team and just playing together," Hunt said in his postgame on-court interview with NESN.
Hinton was held to 11 in Harvard's 77-64 loss at St. John's on Nov. 30, 2024, but the sophomore is leading the Crimson by averaging 16.8 points and has had a 34-point showing against Boston University and a 35-point performance against Massachusetts.