CINCINNATI — Ten minutes wasn’t enough.
Not on the road. It’s not against a team that is desperately trying to compete for the season.
St. John’s came back from an 11-point deficit in the second half, but couldn’t finish the comeback.
Truth be told, Johnny didn’t deserve to leave Cintas Center with a victory.
It’s not the way they defend. Not how they bounced back. Coming off a 43-point loss to top-ranked Connecticut, Xavier defeated St. John’s 88-77 to move the Johnnys to .500 in Big East play ahead of Saturday’s showdown with the reigning national champion Huskies at the Garden. I returned it.
They handled most of this frustrating performance well and were on a roll coming off the bye week.
“It wasn’t good enough. We lost the game,” Danis Jenkins said of St. John’s struggles. “For me, I always tell my players they have to try harder, they have to try harder. That’s all I believe in. That’s what made me. So I tell the players , I try to tell them that they have to work harder and play smarter at the same time.”
Xavier closed out the game with a 13-2 run that started with two Desmond Claude free throws in the final 2:43. Quincy Olivari followed with a 3-pointer, and St. John’s lost its fourth game with five tries.
The final moments of the game followed a similar pattern to many of the Johnnys’ losses this season: shaky finishes.
The game changed dramatically when Claude’s shot was blocked by Chris Ledlum, but St. John’s couldn’t get the defensive rebound and Olivari sank an explosive 3-pointer to cut the lead to five points with 1:57 left. Spread it out.
“Rebounding a loose ball can make or break a game,” coach Rick Pitino said. “We were down by two there, we made him miss a shot, we couldn’t come up with a rebound on a loose ball. That’s how they scored.”
Jenkins gave it his all, scoring 25 points on 11-of-17 shooting, and Joel Soriano added 21 points and 15 rebounds. But no one else really stepped up.
Jordan Dingle, coming off a bout with strep throat, added 12 points despite not being at full strength.
“We didn’t get a lot of power from the other guys tonight,” Pitino said.
But more than any offensive shortcomings, St. John’s (13-8, 5-5) defense was the biggest problem. Xavier (11-10, 5-5) scored 28 points in transition and 32 points in the paint.
They won the battle on the glass by 10 points. Claude, Olivari and Davion McKnight combined for 65 points.
St. John’s won by 15 points in the first meeting between the two teams, but the trio was limited to 42 points.
On the first possession of the second half, St. John’s made a stop but couldn’t get a defensive rebound, which was an omen.
Unable to string together multiple stops, the lead grew to a game-high 11 points when Jenkins lost control of his dribble and Xavier’s Daylene Swain made a crowd-pleasing dunk.
There was still 1:10 p.m., plenty of time for St. John’s to rally.
After coming close several times, St. John’s finally pulled away even on Jenkins’ jumper with 3:59 left. A Xavier timeout was forced. From there it was all musketeers.
“I’ve said it all along, we’re not a great team. We’re a team that’s working hard and getting better,” Pitino said. “Our players did a lot of really good things tonight. We could have won the game, but the rebound of the loose ball turned it around.
“We’ve improved. I think we’re a good team now. I thought we were very average. [most of the season].To beat a team like Xavier on the road you need to put in a great performance and we never did that. [do that] Defensively tonight. ”
