After starting the season with an impressive win against Stony Brook, expectations were high for St. John’s going into a massive matchup at Madison Square Garden against the University of Michigan in the Gavitt Games. The Red Storm fell way short of those expectations, being exposed in an 89-73 blowout against the Wolverines. While the final score is not a true reflection of how lopsided this matchup was, the first half was quite close. 

With just under three minutes to play in the first half, senior center Joel Soriano threw down a vicious dunk to cut Michigan’s lead to four. With this dunk, Soriano crossed the 1,000 career points mark and received a standing ovation from the Madison Square Garden crowd. Soriano’s emphatic slam would be followed by another highlight reel dunk from senior guard Jordan Dingle, as the Red Storm once again cut into Michigan’s lead, 37-35.

After Dingle’s dunk, the Wolverines took full control for the remainder of the game. Led by senior guard Nimari Burnett’s career-high 21 first-half points, Michigan was able to finish the last three minutes of the half on an 11-3 scoring run. Despite the deficit, the Red Storm were able to grab 11 offensive rebounds, leading to 17 second-chance points in the first half. Soriano led the team with nine points at the break, followed by Dingle and graduate guard Daniss Jenkins with eight apiece. 

Coming out of the locker room, St. John’s found themselves suddenly down by 10, which is when things began to get even uglier. Despite strong first-half performances from the Red Storm’s backcourt, Jenkins and Dingle were unable to carry these performances over into the second, as Michigan’s sophomore guard Dug McDaniel began to take over. 

McDaniel gave the Red Storm fits all night, as he ultimately played 38 minutes, leading to a career-high 26 points. McDaniel also added seven assists and six rebounds. 

Michigan’s lead quickly went from 11 to 17 and got as high as 26. St. John’s had little to no offense in the second half of the contest, seeing their first-half shooting percentage of 40.5% drop to a measly 31.6%. Turnovers were another blemish on the Red Storm’s performance, as they committed a game-high 17, leading to 12 fast break points from the Wolverines. 

Allowing Michigan to run the break is what led to the unanswered scoring outputs. While St. John’s forced 13 turnovers on the Wolverines’ end, sloppiness in transition and poor free throw shooting (58.8%) prevented the Red Storm from going on a run of their own. 

After the game, head coach Rick Pitino pointed to a lack of ball movement being the main reason for the beatdown.

“I think they were going one-on-one way too much,” Pitino said. “I think they were watching some NBA players in the Garden here just trying to emulate them.”

Pitino expressed that while the Red Storm was bad on both sides of the ball last night, one area in particular was worse. 

“Our defense was not good tonight, but our offense shocked the s— out of me,” Pitino said. 

For St. John’s, they will now almost certainly fall in the AP rankings. Prior to the Michigan game, the Red Storm received the third most votes out of any unranked team. 

In a quick turnaround, Pitino and his squad will travel to Charleston to play in the Charleston Classic. With their first matchup against North Texas, they will have a chance to right their wrongs in a 1:30 p.m. matchup with the Mean Green on Nov. 16.