College Basketball

Johnny bash: Storm gets destroyed by Hoyas

WASHINGTON — Steve Lavin wanted to shake things up while at the same time reward two of his best practice players.

But the surprising move of inserting walk-on Khadim Ndiaye and little-used reserve Felix Balamou into the starting lineup didn’t seem to inspire the Red Storm.

The St. John’s coach instead saw the continuation of the poor finish to Tuesday’s loss at Xavier, as a horrid first-half performance buried the Johnnies against Georgetown on Saturday afternoon.

The Red Storm no-showed the 100th meeting between the two bitter rivals, falling to 0-2 in the Big East after the Hoyas cruised to a 77-60 victory at the Verizon Center that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score indicated. St. John’s will hope to avoid an 0-3 start in the Big East next Saturday against No. 11 Villanova.

“We were all out of whack and out of sync,” said JaKarr Sampson, who came off the bench for the first time this year and scored just six points. “We didn’t come out and play St. John’s basketball, the kind of basketball we know we can play.”

St. John’s trailed 42-16 at halftime — its fewest points in a first half since scoring 17 on March 10, 2010, in a loss to Marquette — and never got closer than 19 in the forgettable contest, one of the worst performances by the Johnnies in Lavin’s four-year tenure.

St. John’s (9-5, 0-2) was thoroughly outclassed by Georgetown in its fifth straight loss to the Hoyas (10-3, 2-0), who dominated at each end of the floor.

The Johnnies struggled with the Hoyas’ pressure, continued to struggle immensely at the offensive end locating good shots and couldn’t cover sharpshooter D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, who scored 31 points and sank six 3-pointers.

“We didn’t come prepared, we didn’t step on the court ready,” said junior forward Sir’Dominic Pointer, one of the few Johnnies who played with a purpose. “The coaches had us prepared and ready for the game. It was the players who didn’t go through with it.”

Though St. John’s trailed 8-2 with the makeshift starting lineup — the eighth Lavin has used in 14 games — it didn’t fare much better with usual starters Sampson and Phil Greene on the floor. In fact, nobody Lavin used — and he went 13 deep — was effective aside from a select few.

Lavin felt Ndiaye, a junior from Queens who hit a jumper and drew a charge after entering the game with 17 career minutes, performed well, and he should’ve left him in longer at the start of each half.

The first half was reminiscent of the pre-Lavin era at St. John’s, an uninspiring performance devoid of productivity and passion. The Red Storm was repeatedly beaten down the floor for easy baskets, letting up 13 fast-break points, and were uncharacteristically a step slow to loose balls.

St. John’s was stuck on six points 11:05 into the half, was out-scored, 20-16, by Smith-Rivera, and had nearly twice as many turnovers (11) as made field goals (6).

“Our effort is normally not the problem,” Sampson said. “That’s what concerns me the most.”

Leading scorer D’Angelo Harrison was held to four points on 1-of-12 shooting, his first game in single figures this year. Max Hooper scored a team-high 13 points off the bench and Pointer tallied 11 points.

Lavin felt his team performed substantially better after halftime, despite no major runs to get within striking distance. St. John’s outscored Georgetown 44-35 after the break and shot a blistering 56 percent from the field. Compared with the first half, however, it also illustrated what’s lacking: consistently focusing and executing at each end of the floor without lapses.

“We’re at a point where sometimes it gets worse before it gets better,” Lavin warned. “Naturally, the sooner the better. But I’ve also coached long enough. … Oftentimes it’s the school of hard knocks.”