St. John’s routs St. Francis Brooklyn, 86-53

The St. John’s Red Storm took another step closer to finishing nonconference play undefeated. The Red Storm, riding high from the weekend’s win over the Wagner Seahawks, continued their tour of the NEC with a midweek match up against the of St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers.

Historically speaking this game between St. Francis and St. John’s has traditionally been an all Red Storm. Keeping to history, St. John’s not only won this game, but won in a rout by a score of 86-52.

As much as the rout could be the story of the night, especially as the game was more or less over by halftime, the bigger story is that St. John’s played a incredibly well-rounded and convincing game. They did so without running with risk, as they have in prior games of playing down to the opposition.

They were able to get a balanced approach from their starters, with three out of the five finishing the night in double figures. They were able to rotate heavily from the bench with a lot of success. The last time this season that St. John’s rotated this heavily was against Maryland-Eastern Shore which was back in November.

As for this game, the three starters that had double digit points were LJ Figueroa, Shamorie Ponds and Marvin Clark II. Figueroa had 13 points, tied for the team-high with Mikey Dixon, while Ponds and Clark both finished the night with 12. Ponds also led the way again in assists with five, demonstrating a fine prowess for moving the ball around. Figueroa came close to a double-double, but fell a rebound short still led the way with nine rebounds tonight. He also got a technical foul as well, and that might be the only St. John’s foul news of note.

Dixon led the way off the bench with 13 points tying the team mark for this game. Other great bench notes was the extended look Red Storm fans got at Greg Williams Jr., who had a nice game, posting eight points wihle showing a great deal of promise for the future. Fellow freshman Marcellus Earlington also had a decent showing in the last few minutes of play, putting up seven points whilst showing some flashes in the brief minutes of play that he got this game. On a whole, St. John’s got 35 points from the bench.

On the St. Francis side of things, Chauncey Hawkins led the game with 16 points and Jalen Jordan had a nice 11-point outing for the Terriers as well. On a note of lowlights, Glenn Sanabria definitely had a night to forget with a three-point effort, all three points coming from the foul line as he went 0-12 from the field.

St. John’s now moves to 11-0 on the season, and this weekend will be taking on the Sacred Heart Pioneers in their final nonconference game this season. The Big East season is nearly here, and the true test for St. John’s will be here soon. For now the Red Storm will be looking to end nonconference on a perfect note.