The last time St. John’s won a Big East Tournament game, Mike Rice was still coaching at Rutgers, Rysheed Jordan was a sophomore in high school and Carmelo Anthony’s Knicks career was less than a month old.
Yes, it was that long ago, and Steve Lavin said it’s his fault.
The Red Storm didn’t get much closer to breaking through Thursday afternoon.
The fifth-seeded Johnnies’ nightmarish performances in the conference tournament continued with their fourth straight Big East Tournament loss, a lifeless 74-57 defeat to No. 4 Providence at the Garden. The senior class completed its career without a single Big East tourney win, but don’t fault the players.
“I don’t think it’s them — I’m a poor conference tournament coach,” Lavin said, raising eyebrows and receiving stunned silence from the media, after his underwhelming postseason record as St. John’s coach fell to a dismal 2-7 and 1-4 in the Big East Tournament. “I don’t think it has anything to do with our players.”
Lavin went on to say he never has won a conference tournament game when in fact he has won two, in his first year with St. John’s in 2011 and once with UCLA in 2003.
Indeed, Lavin has a lifetime 2-6 record in conference tournaments. He pointed out in his UCLA days his teams often rebounded after poor showings in the NCAA Tournament, though he only coached in two Pac-10 tournaments.
St. John’s is expected to have an opportunity to right itself. The Johnnies (21-11) still will likely reach the NCAA Tournament — virtually all bracketologists had them in prior to Thursday’s tipoff with either a win or a loss — but the setback certainly will hurt its seeding. The Red Storm have lost two straight games, to Providence (22-10) and Villanova, and weren’t competitive in either, beaten by a combined 54 points.
“I’ll probably have a meeting [with the team] before Sunday and then we’ll try to figure out what’s going on,” senior D’Angelo Harrison said. “We got to get it right. We got to make it right for the tournament.”
Lavin used injuries as an excuse for the rout at Villanova — Chris Obekpa (foot) and Jamal Branch (groin) didn’t play — and the high level of the opponent. Thursday was simply a poor effort, and after Providence’s 18-0 run after trailing by seven out of the gate, “We were never really in contention,” Lavin said.
St. John’s shot 31 percent from the field and was out-rebounded, 49-36. The team’s three core seniors — Harrison, Sir’Dominic Pointer and Phil Greene IV — combined for just 23 points. Harrison, a first-team All-Big East selection, shot a dreadful 3-of-15. Rysheed Jordan, coming off the bench for the first time since Jan. 31 despite playing the best basketball of his career over the last month, led the Red Storm with 18 points.
St. John’s had no answer for Providence’s two first-team selections, LaDontae Henton and Kris Dunn. Henton hammered the Johnnies for 20 points and 12 rebounds while Dunn, the co-Big East Player of the Year, was the best player on the floor, with 17 points and 11 assists.
“If anything, we let our offense bleed into our defense, and we can’t win games like that,” Greene said. “When we get stops and rebounds, it would be a totally different game, but we were just not aggressive.”
The Johnnies actually started well, hitting their first three shots and taking a 7-0 lead, before it all unraveled in an avalanche of missed shots, blown defensive assignments and lackluster play.
Providence scored the next 18 points and 35 of the next 45 points, while the Johnnies missed 15 shots in a row — yes, 15 — going 10:06 without a field goal. The Red Storm half-court offense was hard to watch, stagnant, with very little movement and too many forced jumpers. They trailed by double-figures virtually the rest of the way.
“We had no points in transition, and that’s pretty much our game,” Branch said.
It was nonexistent on Thursday — just like St. John’s success in the Big East Tournament under Lavin.
— Additional reporting by Howie Kussoy