Villanova fights off slow start and rolls over St. John’s in Big East opener

For nearly the entire first half Wednesday night inside Finneran Pavilion, St. John’s was doing just about everything it wanted to do. It was forcing Villanova turnovers, getting easy baskets at the rim, and making its open jump shots.

In a blur, the game shifted.

Villanova dominated the middle minutes in its Big East opener and pulled away from a Red Storm team that entered the game with one loss in a 78-63 win.

Villanova (7-5) has won five straight.

The Wildcats had a balanced scoring attack. Eric Dixon led the way with 18 points and six rebounds. Brandon Slater had 16 points. Jordan Longino and Caleb Daniels each scored 13, with Daniels also adding seven rebounds. Cam Whitmore had eight points and 10 rebounds, and fellow freshman Mark Armstrong added eight points and five rebounds.

Joel Soriano was dominant inside at times for St. John’s. The big man finished with 17 points and 13 rebounds. AJ Storr joined him in double figures with 15 points.

Villanova’s formula is pretty simple: take high-percentage shots and don’t turn the ball over. Neither of those things happened early on.

The Wildcats, who entered Wednesday tied for the NCAA lead for fewest possessions per game (9.1) turned it over seven times in the first 16 minutes and trailed, 31-22.

This one shifted quickly.

Villanova ripped off a 13-0 run over the final 3 minutes, 53 seconds of the first half to take a 35-31 lead at the break. That run featured a Slater three-pointer that tied the score, 31-31, and made Finneran Pavilion loud for the first time all night.

The Wildcats didn’t slow down out of the break. The run stretched to 16-0 when Dixon drilled a corner triple to open the second-half scoring.

Then the Wildcats really started to pull away. A steal by Daniels started a transition give-and-go with Armstrong that ended with Armstrong skying for a two-handed slam that forced St. John’s coach Mike Anderson to call a timeout to try to stop the run.

It didn’t work. At one point, Villanova led, 56-41, and St. John’s had made just six of its last 26 shots.

St. John’s doesn’t shoot the ball well to begin with. The Red Storm entered Wednesday connecting on just 31% of their three-point attempts. Once Villanova pulled away, there were few routes to catch up. St. John’s, which finished the night shooting 6-for-25 from beyond the arc, never got the deficit tighter than 12 the rest of the way.

“We kept them out of their sweet spots [early],” Anderson said. “In the second half, they were able to get into their sweet spots and make some plays.”

Villanova turned it over just four times over the final 24 minutes.

“There’s nothing you can do to practice how they play,” Villanova coach Kyle Neptune said. “We don’t play like that. We don’t have those types of guys. That style just takes you a second to feel it. It took us a minute to get comfortable and understand what they were doing.”

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The St. John’s-Villanova matchup of recent has conveyed one of the biggest style clashes on the college basketball calendar.

The Red Storm entered Wednesday eighth in KenPom’s adjusted tempo metric, which tracks each team’s average number of possessions per 40 minutes (adjusted for opponent) while averaging 81 points per game. Villanova, meanwhile, rated 349th in tempo.

There are 363 Division I basketball teams.

Villanova has had plenty of success slowing St. John’s down in the years since Anderson started coaching the Red Storm. The Wildcats entered Wednesday having won six of the last seven matchups.

The Red Storm entered averaging 74 possessions per night. They hit that number Wednesday. St. John’s shot just 27-for-75. Anderson said some of those should have been makes. But Villanova’s improved defense proved to be more than capable.

“That’s the mark of a good team,” Neptune said. “Defense has been something we’ve really been harping on over the last two, three weeks. I think our guys are rising to the occasion.”

After spending Thanksgiving on the road, Villanova has the Christmas weekend off. The Wildcats, who have wrapped their nonconference schedule, resume play on Dec. 28 in Hartford, Conn., vs. No. 2 Connecticut (6:30 p.m., FS1).

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