St. John’s struggles on the glass continue in loss to Kentucky

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ATLANTA — There has been a constant in all four St. John’s losses. 

Rebounding problems.

It again hurt them in Saturday’s 78-66 setback to Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic. 

On Kentucky’s first two possessions of the second half, the Wildcats turned misses into points.

They would pile up 16 second-chance points, 12 coming after halftime, and outrebounded the Red Storm by 11.

The Johnnies are now ranked 317th in defensive rebounding percentage.

Kentucky had as many offensive rebounds (12) as St. John’s total rebounds over the final 20 minutes. 

“It’s the three, four, five,” Pitino said, referring to forwards Dillon Mitchell, Bryce Hopkins and Zuby Ejiofor. “Especially the four, five. They’re not doing a good enough job rebounding.”

“I think our frontcourt was beat down physically a little bit today,” he added. “We got in foul trouble and we just didn’t have the numbers to keep up with that when we got in foul trouble.” 

Pitino was particularly disappointed with St. John’s limited offensive rebounds.

They had 11 on Saturday. Ian Jackson led the team in rebounding overall with six. 

“Disappointed that we keep getting dominated in the frontcourt, on the backboard especially,” Pitino said. “Last year, we were one of the leading offensive rebounding teams in the country, and this year we’re just not getting it done on the offensive glass.”

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“We have a thing called ‘Go’s’,” where in practice [we count] how many times the three, four and five go to the glass. We want our 4s and 5s to go 80 percent of the time, and last year we were about 70. This year we’re about 40 percent. We’re not going to the offensive glass and getting missed shots back so we have to keep working on that.”

Bryce Hopkins’ struggles continued on Saturday. While he scored 13 points, much of that came when the game was well in hand, and he only was able to grab three rebounds.

That’s four in the last two games.

St. John’s 66 points were its second-fewest of the season, after scoring 63 in a win over Ole Miss.