The marquee win continues to elude St. John’s.
The Red Storm surrendered another second-half lead in Saturday afternoon’s 78-66 loss to Kentucky at State Farm Arena in Atlanta and once again failed to defeat an upper-tier non-conference opponent.
Kentucky stormed back behind a 14-0 run as No. 22 St. John’s (7-4) went ice cold from the field, at one point going nearly nine minutes without a made field goal.
The loss, which was part of the neutral-site CBS Sports Classic event, denied St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino a victory against a Kentucky (8-4) program that he led to a national championship in 1996.
St. John’s dominated on defense in the first half, forcing 11 turnovers and limiting Kentucky to only 25 points.
Contributing to the Wildcats’ early struggles was the absence of top point guard Jaland Lowe, who played only one possession in the first half before exiting with a re-aggravated shoulder injury.
But Lowe re-entered at the 17:07 mark of the second half, with St. John’s leading 38-31, and the game flipped from there.
Jayden Quaintance, a projected NBA lottery pick making his return from ACL surgery, cut the Kentucky deficit to 43-40 with a lay-up with 14:07 remaining. On the Wildcats’ next possession, a Lowe floater made it a one-point game.
Quaintance added a tip-in about a minute later, putting Kentucky up 44-43 with 12:32 to go and giving the Wildcats the lead for good. Those were the first three baskets of Kentucky’s 14-0 run, after which it led, 52-43.
That run came in the middle of a St. John’s drought in which the Red Storm did not make a field goal between the 16:07 and 7:10 marks of the second half.
St. John’s missed seven consecutive shots during that stretch. For the game, St. John’s shot just 33% from the field.
The comeback followed a hyper-physical first half in which St. John’s limited Kentucky to just 10-of-28 (36%) shooting, including 1-of-6 on 3-pointers, and led by as many as 10 points.
Pitino intentionally scheduled a brutal non-conference schedule in order to identify his team’s weaknesses as soon as possible.
But St. John’s lost its four biggest tests of non-conference play, previously dropping ranked matchups against Alabama, Iowa State and Auburn.
St. John’s led in the second half of each of those games, too.
The Red Storm has only one non-conference game remaining — against Harvard on Tuesday night at Carnesecca Arena — before it resumes Big East play.
That means the Johnnies’ biggest wins from the non-conference slate will have come against Baylor and Ole Miss. They are now 1-3 against SEC teams.
Pitino coached Kentucky from 1987-99 and led the Wildcats to a national championship in 1996. The captain of that 1996 team was Mark Pope, who is now in his second season as Kentucky’s head coach.
Saturday marked the first time Pitino faced Kentucky since December 2016 during what ended up being his final season as the head coach of archrival Louisville.
Pitino became a villain in the eyes of Kentucky fans when he coached Louisville, but he has since returned to their good graces.
“I’m happy that my name is hanging from the rafters at [Kentucky’s] Rupp Arena,” Pitino said Thursday. “It’s a big part of my life. It’s a big part of eight great years I’ve had there. I’m happy to be part of their family.”
