Sports

St. John’s routed by Georgetown

WASHINGTON — By the time the final indignity had been thrust upon them, when workers at the Verizon Center told St. John’s coach Steve Lavin his team had 30 minutes to clear out of their locker room, reality had hit the players.

The season had reached a crucial point, if not a crisis point, after last night’s 77-52 loss to Georgetown.

It was the Red Storm’s fifth loss in the last six games, and two of the last three have been by more than 20 points. The team that opened Big East play 3-0 now stands at 4-5.

The mandate issued by the 10 seniors to get St. John’s back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2002 is in serious peril.

Time to talk. Time to take ownership. Time to man up.

“I think we just need to have a players’-only meeting,” senior guard Dwight Hardy said. “We just need to talk about getting about to the way we were playing when we started out 3-0 in this league.

“We just got to come together. . . It’s 10 seniors. It’s our last year. It’s all we got left. If we want to make it to the NCAAs, we got to pick it up right now.”

Hardy (4-of-16 shooting, no trips to the foul line) and Justin Burrell addressed their teammates in the locker room, but it was not the formal sit-down that could come as soon as today. Now is the time.

St. John’s (11-8 overall) is about to complete as grueling an eight-game stretch as any team in the nation will face when it plays host to No. 2 Duke on Sunday. They are 2-5 in those games, all of which came against ranked teams.

It is a daunting stretch but this was the year St. John’s was supposed to be able run such a gauntlet. The squad has the experience, toughness and talent.

And with a new coaching staff led by Lavin, the players and fans no longer can use the lame excuse that Norm Roberts and his staff were the cause for such misery.

“Very discouraged,” said Burrell, who had 12 points and eight boards. “Very discouraged. We have nobody to blame but ourselves. It’s not the coaching staff. It’s not our fans. It’s not the academic staff that we have. It’s the players. We’re just not producing.”

The Red Storm, which began this stretch by upsetting Georgetown 61-58 in the Garden on Jan. 3, hung with the Hoyas early. The Johnnies trailed 30-27 with just under five minutes remaining in the first half. But No. 21 Georgetown (15-5, 4-4), a precision offensive team that leads the league in field-goal shooting, had the fluid game it wanted.

A 10-0 run to close the half made it 40-27. The Johnnies closed to within 41-36 but the expended energy, foul trouble and grueling schedule was taking its toll. Georgetown, which got 16 from Jason Clark and 15 from Hollis Thompson, simply dropped the pedal.

“We just can’t panic,” St. John’s senior D.J. Kennedy said. “Every time we go on a losing streak, everyone looks for the panic button. We got to stay together.”

lenn.robbins@nypost.com