CINCINNATI — Rick Pitino has compared St. John’s to a football team that runs the ball, plays terrific defense and hits a big pass once in a while.
It didn’t need the long ball Tuesday night at Cintas Center. Its stifling defense and relentless rebounding was enough for an impressive 82-72 road victory over Xavier.
While St. John’s 3-point shooting remains very much a work in progress — the Red Storm were just 2-for-16 from beyond the arc in this win — the Johnnies hammered the Musketeers in every other area for its first Quad 1 win of the season and eighth victory in nine games.
The aggression started early with Kadary Richmond and, aside from a brief shaky period to end the first half, didn’t stop.
It was a beatdown on the glass (50-30) and in the paint (54-30) as St. John’s improved to 4-1 in league play for the second straight season.
RJ Luis and Zuby Ejiofor combined for 36 points and 22 rebounds, and Simeon Wilcher tallied 15.
Aaron Scott and Richmond each had 12.
Defense, though, is where the Johnnies won this game.
They held Xavier, the Big East’s second-leading 3-point shooting team, to 22.2 percent shooting from 3-point range and 36.7 percent overall from the field.
The start was strong, particularly from Richmond.
He scored St. John’s first six points and it quickly built a big lead, as much as 14 at one point.
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The Musketeers helped, missing 14 of their first 17 shots. But the Johnnies managed only 11 points over the final 7:13, and Xavier got to within four at the break.
The 3-pointers still weren’t falling, St. John’s making only one in 10 tries.
It was also hurt in transition, outscored 14-2 by Xavier.
It felt similar to the loss to Creighton, when St. John’s blew most of an 11-point, first-half lead by halftime and fell a point short.
But unlike in the Creighton game, St. John’s came out for the second half focused, determined and dynamic on defense.
Over the first 10 minutes of the period, it held Xavier to as many made field goals as turnovers: Four. It put together a 14-4 run that, capped by Scott’s putback on an offensive rebound, pushed the lead to a game-high 15 with 10:14 left.
