The St. John’s Red Storm fell 103-95 to the Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, and head coach Rick Pitino did not hold back when asked about what went wrong for his Johnnies.
Pitino said that St. John’s fell into the trap of allowing Alabama to control the pace of the game. In particular, he noted that guards Oziyah Sellers and Ian Jackson, who finished with 14 points each, were too impatient on offense.
“On offense, they were too quick. They wanted to play like Alabama, and it's the one thing we wanted to stay away from: quick shoot, and we were quick shooting a lot and not letting them have to play defense. Then we flipped it at the other end, and we couldn't guard them off the bounce,” Pitino told Steve Holley of Roll Tide Wire.
“So, our guards didn't play particularly well tonight, but that's because they (Alabama) have great guards.”
Pitino didn't just criticize his backcourt. The New York native also lit into his frontcourt’s lack of physicality. Despite only losing the rebound battle by a single board, Pitino asserted that his team was not aggressive enough. Alabama guards Labaron Philon and Aden Holloway combined for 46 points as the Crimson Tide outscored St. John's 54-40 in the paint.
“I'm just a little concerned that our front court doesn't like to hit people when the shot is taken. We try to out-jump them instead of hitting people. We've got to learn. We made a lot of fundamental mistakes down the stretch. Even Zuby (Ejiofor) and (Dillon Mitchell), two of our captains, made fundamental mistakes when we took the the lead,” Pitino said. “So, it's a new team. They're getting used to each other. This is a great game to play. It'll teach us a lot.”
St. John’s will have a chance to regroup before they host William & Mary next Saturday at Carnesecca Arena.
