What a blowout. The Mountaineers went all over St. John's basketball and it was a thrashing.
The Red Storm could only score on Mountaineer turnovers, couldn't get into their offense, and the squad looked like a team of guys at their second practice. They know what it's supposed to look like but don't yet know how to play off of each other.
Part of that is "age" but part of that is "roster makeup" - all sophomores. And a big part of that is coaching. Even when the ball could get past the halfcourt line, the Red Storm couldn't get the ball to their scorers.
Interestingly enough, the bull-in-china-shop Sean Evans missed 4 shots, then hit the team's first field goal (at the 15.43 mark in the first half), well before Justin Burrell took a shot, a rocking dunk with 13.03 left to make the score 11-4 West Virginia.
And no one who watched this game could claim they "played hard." But they did wear the snazzy black jerseys for the second time.
Impressively, St. John's got beat in each of the Four Factors. See more at StatSheet.
With respect to the Keys of the Game:
Bottling the Good Times? It’s more than playing hard, it’s about playing without mistakes. There were lots of mistakes, and this looked nothing like even the Boston College game.
Crisp Winter Passing? Ugh. Simply terrible with the unforced turnovers. The passing has been worse, but there were few times where the players were making passing plays except for turnovers for dunks.
Hot Shooting? Even with some late shots in garbage time, the 4 players who took the most shots came out with these results (in effective field goal percentage, accounting for 3 point shots made): Q. Roberts 43% (1 3 pointer made); Horne 35%; Kennedy 30%; Evans 25%. Note that Burrell had only 3 shots, and the team as a whole went 1-6 from beyond the arc. Oh, and Da'Sean Butler went 5-7 from the three, and 8-14 overall.
Block Out With Your #*$! Out? Well I guess West Virginia's offensive rebounding could have been even better... but St. John's still fell behind in this area, especially in the second half, when the effort was weak.
Hands Free Suppression? It was a somewhat physical game for the Johnnies, and credit must be given to the team for turning the Mountaineers over, and for Dele Coker being a shot-blocking force. But there wasn't enough defense at all, even if West Virginia didn't shoot lights-out.