St. John’s Basketball: Takeaways from loss to Michigan in Gavitt Games
By John Makuch
1. Rebounding was good, but interior defense was not
Despite getting blown out, St. John’s did win the rebound battle by a decent margin, 47-39. Usually a team that out-rebounds the other comes out with the win, or that is what helped them keep it close in a tough loss. Rarely do you see a team out-rebound the other, and then get steamrolled.
The rebounding charge is always going to be a decent advantage for St. John’s with big man Joel Soriano dominating game in and game out. He helped create a number of second chances for the Red Storm, they just could not capitalize against Michigan.
The strange contract is how well the Johnnies played inside in terms of rebounding, but the Wolverines were getting easy baskets inside on drives what felt like at will. There was just no answer for the guards and wings of Michigan just taking dribble drives straight to the rack.
St. John’s needed much more aggression and physicality defensively if they wanted to win this game, and Michigan just outmatched them in every aspect of that department. This could just be a flow thing, with a team full of new faces trying to figure out where they want to be rotating in these situations, but if they wanted to win against Michigan they had to figure this out.
If the Red Storm can play as well in defending shots as they did rebounding them, this team will not give up nearly as many points to teams the way they did against Michigan.