Putting the Demons Behind

St. John’s needed to take care of business against the lowly winless DePaul Blue Demons at Carnesecca Arena on Sunday. We all know games aren’t played on paper but anyone and everyone chalked this up as a win today for the Red Storm. However the Red Storm have lost three Big East games where they have had a lead of 6 or more points at one point in the game so you never know.

The Red Storm started with a lineup of Malik Boothe, Paris Horne, DJ Kennedy, Sean Evans, and Dele Coker. Coker started his second consecutive game for St. John’s matching up with former potential recruit Krys Faber.

St. John’s won the opening tip, running a very nice double screen for Paris Horne who opened up the game with an easy layup (pictured right). Both Evans and Coker lined up a the top of the key while Kennedy was in the deep left corner. As Horne curled around the screen, Kennedy already took his man with him to the right side leaving nothing between Horne and the basket. It was so nice to see something so organized by design to open the game.

The Johnnies led 6-2 at the first media time out and things looked like they were well on their way to being a blow out as the starters had things in control. Wait a second! Stith, Hardy, Brownlee, Mason, and Burrell all got minutes soon after which meant 10 different St. John’s players were in the game within the first 6 minutes of the game. Now its 6-6, 8-8, 10-10, ugh not again.

With 7 minutes remaining in the first half the score was 17-15 in favor of St. John’s. Coming out of the timeout St. John’s ran a nice inbounds play for 2 points and that seemed to ignite the Red Storm as well as the crowd. Big props to the Jungle as they played the old 5,4,3…. shot clock trick on DePaul as they rushed a shot with 4 seconds left on the clock which resulted in a miss and a transition bucket the other way for St. John’s during their 10-0 run.

In the second half it was all St. John’s as they jumped out early 20-4 in the second half and emptied out the bench to the walk-ons.

Mason Jr. probably had his best game of the season finishing with 8 points and 10 rebounds continuing to blend into the rotation. Justin Burrell showed off a little razzle dazzle with an up and under layup that made you look twice to see if it really was Burrell (no headband through me off). Malik 1.0 and 2.0 combined for 33 minutes, 4 points, 4 assists, and 2 turnovers. Dwight Hardy didn’t add much either having a rare cold day from the floor however he should still be stealing more minutes from the Maliks.