Six days off wasn’t enough for St. John’s to find its “A” game.
Another 20 minutes of shaking off the rust certainly did the trick, though.
Inserted into the starting lineup for the first time and coming off a strained calf, Dylan Darling was in the middle of a dominant start to the second half with his scoring, his sweet passes and his pesky defense, and No. 13 St. John’s turned a surprisingly tight five-point game into a blowout, 93-60 victory Saturday night at Carnesecca Arena.
An 8-0 spurt out of the halftime locker room — that was actually the start of a larger 27-2 run to open up a 30-point advantage — began with Darling driving to the basket for an off-balance layup and included two of his three assists.
The Idaho State transfer threw a pass across the lane to the backside low box for Bryce Hopkins, who faked his defender into the air and went up uncontested for a layup and a 43-34 lead.
Then, after a turnover on the other end, Darling single-handedly beat a full-court press with his low dribble and dropped a bounce pass to Hopkins for a dunk.
As Hopkins hustled back to face-guard, the rattled tribe threw the in-bounds pass out of bounds.
The rim was barely recovered from Hopkins by the time that Zuby Ejiofor slammed home an offensive rebound and forced a timeout.
Playing for the first time in a week after a litmus-test loss to Alabama when Darling was unavailable, St. John’s benefited from a balanced attack of five double-figure scorers: Hopkins (15), Joson Sanon (15), Darling (13), Oziyah Sellers (13) and Ejiofor (11)
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A couple of fast-break, one-handed dunks by Ian Jackson and a windmilling Dillon Mitchell punctuated the victory.
The score was locked at 28-28 with less than six minutes remaining in the first half.
The Tribe’s 3-point shooting kept it close through the first half, with six accounting for 18 of the first 28.
Sellers fed Hopkins and Ejiofor for layups on back-to-back possessions as the Johnnies (2-1) captured a 32-28 lead.
It was a fitting way to go ahead for good because 11 of their first 14 field goals came from the paint.
Sanon finally knocked the lid off the basket from deep, giving him a team-high nine first-half points and helping send St. John’s to the locker room with a 39-34 lead.
Head coach Rick Pitino slightly tweaked the starting lineup, inserting Darling as an extra ball hander to allow the combo guard Sellers more chances to set up his shot.
CHECK OUT THE LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS AND ST. JOHN’S STATS
Mitchell came off the bench for the first time.
The delayed rewards happened in the second half and the packed house took notice with a nice ovation for Darling when he subbed out after six minutes, after the lead was stretched to 64-36.
To get it to a blowout, there were highlights like Mitchell’s athletic block at the rim that became a quick transition layup for Sellers.
And a couple of 3s from Sellers.
And Darling’s old-fashioned three-point play.
Pitino — as if wanting to send a message about keeping your foot on the gas to his newly assembled team — even challenged a goaltending call against Mitchell despite a 78-45 lead.
William & Mary (2-2) looked every bit like a team playing its first non-conference game against a ranked opponent since Dec. 22, 2020.
St. John’s shot 20 of- 40 from the floor in the second half and 48 percent for the game.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
