INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 With its back against the wall, as Rick Pitino alluded to three days ago, St. John\u2019s came out swinging.<\/p>\n
The Red Storm showed grit. They played together. <\/p>\n
They answered Butler runs, and they crushed the Bulldogs after halftime, cruising to a much-needed 84-70 victory Tuesday at Hinkle Fieldhouse, their second Quad 1 win of the season.<\/p>\n
There were a number of turning points, from the contributions of reserves Ruben Prey and Lefteris Liotopoulos in a 14-7 run that ended the first half to Bryce Hopkins\u2019 assertive start to the second half as St. John\u2019s took the lead for good. <\/p>\n
Most of all, the Johnnies picked themselves off the mat after Saturday\u2019s loss to Providence and played one of their best games of the season. <\/p>\n
This was a gut-check performance. This certainly didn\u2019t look like the group that wilted down the stretch against Providence on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them all week, I don\u2019t care what the outside noise says, you have to block it out. I said, I have full confidence in every single guy on this basketball team. We know why we lost that game the other day: We didn\u2019t rebound the ball and we made some really bad plays, and it ended up in our demise,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cSo, when it got to the 12-minute mark, I said, \u2018OK, are we going to learn from that, when we come back, at the eight-minute mark, when we come back at the four-minute mark,\u2019 and we did. We learned from it and we grew as a basketball team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuby Ejiofor was in second-half foul trouble, and it didn\u2019t matter. St. John\u2019s (10-5, 3-1) extended the lead without the star senior. <\/p>\n
Zuby Ejiofor blocks Drayton Jones\u2019 dunk attempt during the first half of St. John\u2019s 84-70 road win over Butler on Jan. 6, 2026 at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Robert Goddin-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
After being overreliant on Ejiofor (18 points, five rebounds, three steals) three days ago, four other Johnnies scored in double figures. <\/p>\n
Hopkins tallied 15 of his 17 points after halftime, and Prey, Liotopoulos and Oziyah Sellers added 10 apiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt showed our resilience and it showed our competitive nature to come back after losing at home,\u201d Hopkins said. \u201cI thought we responded really well. We want to keep building from here and let\u2019s get another win on Saturday at Creighton..\u201d<\/p>\n
Dillon Mitchell dunks the ball against Yohan Traore during the first half of St. John\u2019s road loss to Butler at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Robert Goddin-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Pitino went to a two big-man lineup of Prey and Ejiofor, and it sparked St. John\u2019s late in the first half, as it erased a seven-point deficit. <\/p>\n
Prey pulled the Johnnies even at the buzzer of the opening stanza with a 3-pointer and helped limit Butler (10-6, 1-4) star Michael Ajayi to 14 points.<\/p>\n
After halftime, St. John\u2019s forced the Bulldogs into 13 turnovers \u2014 they committed a season-high 21 \u2014 and held them to 28 points.<\/p>\n
CHECK OUT THE LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS<\/a> AND ST. JOHN\u2019S STATS<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe did a very good job on a great player, Ajayi, taking away his right hand,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cWe made [Finley] Bizjack work very hard, and we took away the other players.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t the start St. John\u2019s hoped for. <\/p>\n The Johnnies missed their first five shots and Hopkins picked up two quick fouls, ending his first half early.<\/p>\n Rick Pitino yells out instructions to his team during St. John\u2019s road win over the Bulldogs at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Ian Jackson was also in foul trouble and registered only six minutes in the first half. <\/p>\n Prey and Liotopoulos\u2019 combined 16 points in the half kept St. John\u2019s close, even as Butler shot 54 percent from the field and also went to the free-throw line 14 times, making 11 of them.<\/p>\n Hopkins hit his first shot of the second half, a right-wing 3-pointer, and proceeded to score nine over the first 5:36 of the period. <\/p>\n By that time, St. John\u2019s had built a five-point lead. It grew to 14 after a Dillon Mitchell steal and layup. <\/p>\n Butler called timeout, but with only 7:16 left, St. John\u2019s was on its way to a key victory.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be the start to something good,\u201d Hopkins said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 With its back against the wall, as Rick Pitino alluded to three days ago, St. John\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,1273,217,231,772,1544,1284,66,218],"class_list":{"0":"post-521773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-butler-bulldogs","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab","14":"tag-rick-pitino","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-st-johns-red-storm"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115851995712279225","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Robert Goddin-Imagn Images<\/p>\n