The 2024-25 season was an essential one for the St. John’s basketball program. They gained the Large East championship for the primary time in 25 years, returned to relevance on a nationwide stage and established an id underneath an all-time nice coach — Rick Pitino — that ought to make them a power within the coming seasons.
They’re again on the map.
Their magical season ended on Saturday within the Spherical of 32 once they have been on the dropping finish of a 75-66 choice towards No. 10 seed Arkansas.
It was not a shock as to what finally did them in.
They merely couldn’t make their pictures.
St. John’s shot simply 28% from the sphere (21-of-75) and solely 9% (2-of-22) from three-point vary.
No one was resistant to the struggles, together with Large East Participant of the Yr RJ Luis Jr., who completed the sport on the bench after taking pictures 3-of-17 from the sphere.
None of this could have been an excessive amount of of a shock for anyone who’s watched this St. John’s crew all season. For all of their strengths defensively, and for all of their grit and toughness that helped outline the tradition of the roster, they have been a constantly poor taking pictures crew all season. Particularly from deep.
The Purple Storm completed the season a hundred and fifty fifth within the nation in general area purpose share (45.1%) and 333rd (30.8%) from three-point vary.
If there was an Achilles heel with this crew, that was it.
It confirmed itself on the worst potential crew on Saturday.
That must be the first focus for Pitino going into the offseason and in preparation for subsequent season. Particularly now that the brand new commonplace has been set for this system the place successful is once more going to develop into the expectation. Their fashion of play this season labored nice all common season and all through the Large East match. However when the competitors will get more durable deep into the match, and when each recreation turns into one towards a top-tier crew, toughness and protection are solely going to take you up to now. At that time, it’s important to make some pictures.
