{"id":17177,"date":"2025-10-26T11:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T11:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/17177\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T11:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T11:59:08","slug":"st-johns-needs-more-from-its-guards-in-one-glaring-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/17177\/","title":{"rendered":"St. John&#8217;s needs more from its guards in one glaring area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rick Pitino wants more out of his backcourt.<\/p>\n<p>Fifth-ranked St. John\u2019s was outrebounded by 12 by No. 7 Michigan in <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/10\/26\/sports\/rick-pitino-stressing-positives-from-st-johns-preseason-loss-to-michigan\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">an exhibition loss Saturday night<\/a> at the Garden, and it was not the fault of big men Zuby Ejiofor, Dillon Mitchell and Bryce Hopkins.<\/p>\n<p>They had 23 rebounds between them. <\/p>\n<p>The issue was that Dylan Darling, Ian Jackson, Oziyah Sellers and Joson Sanon combined for just one.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been very blessed in my coaching career with guards that rebound, and I\u2019ve got a group here that doesn\u2019t rebound the ball,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cWe have to do something about that. And they\u2019re good enough athletes to rebound.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe most glaring weakness [on our team] is the guards not rebounding the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.31619537;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37486961\" width=\"777\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0-first-half-st-johns-114198338.jpg\" alt=\"Dylan Darling (0) during the first half when the St. John's Red Storm played the Michigan Wolverines Saturday, October 25, 2025 at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, NY. \" class=\"wp-image-37486961\"  \/>Dylan Darling dribbles up court during St. John\u2019s 96-94 preseason loss to Michigan at Madison Square Garden. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>CHECK OUT THE <a href=\"https:\/\/sportstats.nypost.com\/basketball\/ncaab\/standings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS<\/a> AND <a href=\"https:\/\/sportstats.nypost.com\/basketball\/ncaab\/teamstatistics\/2442\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ST. JOHN\u2019S STATS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sellers, the team\u2019s starting point guard, was scoreless in eight foul-plagued minutes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOziyah has been fouling a lot in practice, and we have done a poor job as coaches in calling fouls,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cWe\u2019ve let him get away with putting hands on people. That was a great learning experience for him as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jackson was dealing with a sore ankle after missing multiple practices this week. Overall, he struggled, shooting 1-for-8 from the field in 21 minutes off the bench.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not concerned, he\u2019ll play better than he did tonight,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cWe got to work on Ian\u2019s handle, where he gets a little bump, he doesn\u2019t cough it up. But he\u2019ll play better than he did tonight. I\u2019ve got confidence in him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.80078125;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37486966\" width=\"472\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/11-takes-shot-first-half-114198297.jpg\" alt=\"St. John's Red Storm guard Ian Jackson (11) takes a shot during the first half when the St. John's Red Storm played the Michigan Wolverines Saturday, October 25, 2025 at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, NY. \" class=\"wp-image-37486966\"  \/>Ian Jackson takes a shot during the first half of St. John\u2019s preseason home loss to Michigan. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>Michigan star Yaxel Lendeborg had 25 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. He was initially committed to St. John\u2019s under former coach Mike Anderson. Lendeborg said he had a chip on his shoulder facing the Johnnies.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about the senior, Pitino called him a \u201cterrific player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rick Pitino wants more out of his backcourt. Fifth-ranked St. John\u2019s was outrebounded by 12 by No. 7&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3361,9,24,55,54,56,319,3363],"class_list":{"0":"post-17177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-college-basketball","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-st-johns-red-storm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}