When St. John’s and Villanova matched earlier this season, Red Storm began to establish themselves as a real national championship challenger.
Rinse forward exactly one month later and No. 9 John’s has climbed into the Associated Press Top 10 for the first time since March 2000 when head coach Rick Pitino’s team prepares for Wednesday’s road match with Wildcats.
“(Our team is) to have a hell of a year,” Pitino said. “We just have to keep it up.”
The red storm (21-3, 12-1 Big East) has won 10 games in a row, which includes an 80-68 home victory over Villanova on January 11 representing the third victory in this row. RJ LUIS JR. collected 30 points while St. John’s frustrated Wildcats star Eric Dixon to 6-AV-19 shooting.
“Coach Pitino is a good coach,” Dixon said after that game. “They came with many different defenders and did a good job.”
In addition, St. John’s crushed Villanova on the boards (44-28) with Luis 10 and Zuby Ejiofor who jerked nine boards to go with 11 points.
“As a team, we crash all the boards, and I’m the one who ended up with rebound,” Luis said. “That’s what the coach said: We have it life and the grain to just play hard.”
More recently, St. John’s Back-to-back victories against ranked enemies. The team nipped Marquette and Uconn last week and noted a 68-62 victory over Huskies on Friday when Luis scored 21 points and Kadary Richmond added all 13 points during the second half.
Luis hopes to be able to come back to the free throw line at a similar rate as the first matchup against Villanova-when he shot 16 out of 20 from the band. Since that game, Luis has tried a total of 27 Foul Shots during the last seven games.
He also hopes to be able to improve his 3-point shooting after walking 1 in 10 at a long distance in the last two games.
Dixon is in a similar mood after shooting 4 out of 16 from 3-point intervals in the last three games. He got 24 points in Sunday’s victory over Xavier and shot 50 percent from the floor after he did not reach that mark in one of the previous eight matches.
“I wouldn’t say something really changed,” Dixon said. “They drove guys on me during the first half, but I gradually thought I started to get a feeling for what they wanted to do. It’s always good to see the ball go through the basket.”
Dixon was one of three 20-point scores against Xavier when Wooga Poplar went for 23 points and Tyler Perkins contributed 20 points on 7-9 shooting from the bench.
“I’m just trying to do what I can to help the team, whether it’s talking, energy, bring the juice,” Perkins said.
Villanova (14-10, 7-6) has won two matches in a row after a 1-5 distance where the team’s only victory was a two-point nail pieces against Providence.
Wildcats, in the middle of a disappointing season, are still 2-1 against ranked enemies this season. They topped No. 14 Cincinnati 68-60 in early December and passed UCONN 68-66 in early January. More recently, they lost to Marquette January 24.
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