Tough night across the river; St. John's loses 94-64

The rain in Newark was round and orange, and came down in torrents from the Prudential Center ceiling. Six Seton Hall players nailed at least one triple, and the Red Storm were powerless to stop the deluge of 15 threes out of 25 attempts, a 60% clip.

Seton Hall cracked 75 points with 9 minutes left in the game, had 40 at the half, and handled the Red Storm all game on their way to a 94-64 blowout.

For Seton Hall, the offense clicked, especially in the second half. The Red Storm looked competitive early, but fell behind 40-28. Then the Hall - a 35% shooting team from beyond the arc - started hitting. Seton Hall was paced by 16 from Jordan Theodore and 10 assists, with help from Aaron Cosby (14 points/ 5 assists) and Herb Pope (10 points/ 10 rebounds). Patrik Auda also had 10 rebounds and 12 points.

The Seton Hall Pirates keep the NCAA hopes alive and kicking with the win, improving to 18-8, 7-7 in the Big East. They travel to Cincinnati next.

Early in the first half, the Red Storm had solid ball movement, working the ball into spaces against the zone and getting decent looks. But Seton Hall switched up their defenses, and the Red Storm's attack stagnated by the end of the first half. St. John's got some scoring from their main weapons, Maurice Harkless (15 points/ 11 rebounds) and D`Angelo Harrison (12 points/ 2 steals). But there wasn't enough scoring for the upset, and there wasn't enough help. At the half, Harrison and Harkless had 10 apiece, and no other player had more than 2.

St. John's falls to 10-16, 4-10 in the Big East, with the nationally televised matchup against UCLA tipping off on Saturday. More notes and takeaways, after the jump.

Takeaways

Depth and the defense. It's hard to believe that a team with these kind of athletes could give up 1.37 points per Seton Hall possession. But they did. One has to wonder if the lack of depth - and they heavy percentage of minutes the players have logged - hasn't affected their legs, their defensive sharpness, their ability/ willingness to jump gaps and bother passes.

The Hall had 23 assists on the night, moving the ball and finding open shots. With the shots that Aaron Cosby had in the first half, he could have gone 6/9 overall.

The empty tank? D`Angelo Harrison's 2-point shooting percentage has been dipping; tonight, he shot 2/9 inside the arc. Part of that was the defense from players like Herb Pope, but he had some looks that rimmed out.

Meanwhile, God`sgift Achiuwa was unable to hang on to the ball on passes or on rebounds. As a whole, the team struggled to weave through the latticework of Seton Hall pressure. The defensive rotations looked confused at times, with two players running out on a shooter.

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Schedule recap, with links to the Rumble St. John's game recaps and links to re-watch games