St. John’s Basketball: Takeaways from loss to Michigan in Gavitt Games

3. Joel Soriano, still a star

The real bright spot for St. John’s was the star of the team himself, Joel Soriano. Soriano went 6-8 from the field with a near double-double, leading the team in scoring and rebounding with 15 points and nine rebounds. Five of those rebounds were offensive, and defensively he picked up a block and affected a number of shots from Michigan.

It was clear that he had an edge physically against everyone else on the floor, but he needed his shooters around him to perform. Jordan Dingle and Daniss Jenkins both put up 10 points with two made threes, but UConn transfer Nahiem Alleyne struggled to get things going. He finished with eight points but shot 2-8 from three-point land, and 3-13 on the night.

Alleyne is a good player, and performances like this should not be the standard from him, but an off night can lead to a domino affect that causes a blowout like it did in this game. The blame does not go on him, but a few more makes or better shot selection could have made this game a bit different, although this was a whole poor team performance.

Joel Soriano cannot do it all, but If Pitino still what it takes to bring a potential championship to St. John’s, these role players and other key starter will step up once they get a few games under their belt. The Red Storm take on North Texas and Holy Cross in their next two games, so they have the opportunity to wipe this away, and get two good tune up games in.