{"id":41006,"date":"2025-11-16T02:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T02:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/41006\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T02:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T02:41:07","slug":"st-johns-cruises-to-blowout-victory-over-william-mary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/41006\/","title":{"rendered":"St. John’s cruises to blowout victory over William & Mary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six days off wasn\u2019t enough for St. John\u2019s to find<\/a> its \u201cA\u201d game.<\/p>\n

Another 20 minutes of shaking off the rust certainly did the trick, though.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s turned a surprisingly tight five-point game into a blowout, 93-60 victory Saturday night at Carnesecca Arena.<\/p>\n

An 8-0 spurt out of the halftime locker room \u2014 that was actually the start of a larger 27-2 run to open up a 30-point advantage \u2014 began with Darling driving to the basket for an off-balance layup and included two of his three assists.<\/p>\n

Dylan Darling defends during the St. John\u2019s win over William & Mary on Nov. 15. Imagn Images<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Zuby Ejiofor is pictured with the ball during the St. John\u2019s win over William & Mary on Nov. 15. AP<\/p>\n

Rick Pitino reacts on the sideline during the St. John\u2019s game against William & Mary on Nov. 15. AP<\/p>\n

As Hopkins hustled back to face-guard, the rattled tribe threw the in-bounds pass out of bounds.<\/p>\n

The rim was barely recovered from Hopkins by the time that Zuby Ejiofor slammed home an offensive rebound and forced a timeout.<\/p>\n

Playing for the first time in a week after a litmus-test loss<\/a> to Alabama when Darling was unavailable, St. John\u2019s benefited from a balanced attack of five double-figure scorers: Hopkins (15), Joson Sanon (15), Darling (13), Oziyah Sellers (13) and Ejiofor (11)<\/p>\n

CHECK OUT THE LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS<\/a> AND ST. JOHN\u2019S STATS<\/a><\/p>\n

A couple of fast-break, one-handed dunks by Ian Jackson and a windmilling Dillon Mitchell punctuated the victory.<\/p>\n

The score was locked at 28-28 with less than six minutes remaining in the first half. <\/p>\n

The Tribe\u2019s 3-point shooting kept it close through the first half, with six accounting for 18 of the first 28.<\/p>\n

Sellers fed Hopkins and Ejiofor for layups on back-to-back possessions as the Johnnies (2-1) captured a 32-28 lead. <\/p>\n

Joson Sanon defends during the St. John\u2019s game against William & Mary on Nov. 15. Imagn Images<\/p>\n

It was a fitting way to go ahead for good because 11 of their first 14 field goals came from the paint.<\/p>\n

Sanon finally knocked the lid off the basket from deep, giving him a team-high nine first-half points and helping send St. John\u2019s to the locker room with a 39-34 lead.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

CHECK OUT THE LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS<\/a> AND ST. JOHN\u2019S STATS<\/a><\/p>\n

Mitchell came off the bench for the first time.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

To get it to a blowout, there were highlights like Mitchell\u2019s athletic block at the rim that became a quick transition layup for Sellers. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYour weekly dispatch from the No. 1 source on the Johnnies\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside St. John’s by Zach Braziller, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

And a couple of 3s from Sellers. <\/p>\n

And Darling\u2019s old-fashioned three-point play.<\/p>\n

Pitino \u2014 as if wanting to send a message about keeping your foot on the gas to his newly assembled team \u2014 even challenged a goaltending call against Mitchell despite a 78-45 lead.<\/p>\n

William & Mary (2-2) looked every bit like a team playing its first non-conference game against a ranked opponent since Dec. 22, 2020.<\/p>\n

St. John\u2019s shot 20 of- 40 from the floor in the second half and 48 percent for the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six days off wasn\u2019t enough for St. John\u2019s to find its \u201cA\u201d game. Another 20 minutes of shaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3361,9,11,10,3362,319,3363],"class_list":{"0":"post-41006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-college-basketball","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-rick-pitino","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-st-johns-red-storm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41006","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=41006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}