Big East Basketball: Each team’s worst performance of the last decade

St. John’s

November 29, 2016 (Delaware State 79, at St. John’s 72) (GS: 2)

St. John’s is another one of those rocky power conference teams without very much success in recent years. They’ve been to the NCAA Tournament much more recently than DePaul, but the last few years under Chris Mullin have been pretty awful. Like DePaul, this was also a program that used to have great success, though the Red Storm are a shadow of their former self. As you can imagine, there are many bad games to consider.

There are losses we could consider, but instead of wasting time, we’re just going to look closely at one other performance, a close second-place finish in the contest of terribleness. In the midst of a typically awful season, St. John’s fell at home to Incarnate Word in December 2015, losing by 22-points to the Southland Conference team. It’s really bad to be outplayed to this extent by a team like this, but Delaware State was worse.

First, consider that this was Delaware State’s first non-conference D-1 victory in nearly two years. The MEAC program is in shambles but had just enough to beat the Red Storm by 7 on this day. Devin Morgan ignited for 26 points to lead Delaware State and St. John’s chucked up 37 3-pointers, making just 12 of them in a disappointing effort. The combination of their unbalanced offensive attack and losing the turnover battle (14 to 12) to a MEAC team at home led to this complete embarrassment.

St. John’s has a long successful history, but the success has been pretty absent lately. Chris Mullin might turn this program around, but there’s been little proof so far that it’s going to be an imminent shift. The Big East remains a deep conference and there just might not be room for the Red Storm to emerge anytime soon.