No. 15 St. John’s suffered a historic 72-40 loss to No. 6 UConn on Wednesday in one of the most lopsided defeats of Rick Pitino’s coaching career. The Red Storm went the final 17:28 without making a field goal and scored their fewest amount of points since 2013. During that stretch, St. John’s missed 24 consecutive field goals and scored just 14 points in the second half after trailing 41-26 at halftime.
The Red Storm shot 6 of 36 (16.7%) on 2-point field goals against UConn, which was the worst field goal percentage by a top-15 team in a game over the last 20 seasons. The 40 points St. John’s scored were the fewest points a Pitino-led team finished with in his coaching career. The previous low was 43 points, which happened in 1981 against UCLA when Pitino was coaching Boston University.
“It’s all on me,” Pitino said. “I’m very disappointed in our performance offensively, especially. Sharing the ball, moving the ball. It’s all on me. But we will get ready for Villanova. We are still playing for a league championship. Doesn’t matter whether you lose by 1 or 40, league championship is still at stake. Obviously, we have to make our corrections and move on.”
Pitino did not attend the standard post-game press conference, but took questions from a small group of reporters after the loss. That session lasted just over a minute. In the final question with reporters before walking away, Pitino was asked to clarify what he meant by the loss being “all on him,” in which he responded that he would be making his corrections and “moving on.”
Entering the week, St. John’s was one of the hottest teams in college basketball. The Red Storm had won 13 consecutive games while being at the top of the Big East standings with a 15-1 record. The lone loss in conference play (outside of Wednesday) was against Providence at home.
“I don’t know what it is,” Pitino said when asked if the UConn crowd played a factor. “All I know is we didn’t play good offense. We did things we have never done. And again, that’s something I got to question about myself and I will question it because the team did not do the things we have done in the last 13 games. Give them the credit. We will move on and get ready for Villanova.”
St. John’s finishes the regular season against Villanova, Georgetown and Seton Hall. The Red Storm can clinch at least a share of the Big East regular season title for the second consecutive year under Pitino by winning those final three games.
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