Ponds Keys Domination of No. 16 Marquette
JAMAICA, NY - Lost in the noise of the egregious officiating blunder that robbed St. John’s of a win last Saturday at Seton Hall was the fact that its most important player had his worst of game of the season. It wasn’t lost on him.
Quickly after the buzzer sounded in the Prudential Arena and St. John’s perfect record was perfect no more, Shamorie Ponds addressed his team in the locker room following a 2-for-13 outing to make sure they knew they could count on him to bounce back.
He responded with a “beautiful” performance that featured 26 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists to anchor an 89-69 win over No. 16 Marquette in the Big East home opener Tuesday evening at a sold-out Carnesecca Arena.
“I’m just glad he played well. I know he didn’t feel good about last game,” said coach Chris Mullin. “I’ve played games just like that. I remember them still to this day and the only thing you want to do is go out there and play again and play well.
“Days like that, they’re really good teaching moments in basketball, but also in life. Things get thrown your way unexpectedly and a lot of times you’re not going to like it, but the most important thing is how you handle it. I thought he played a beautiful game tonight. To play like he did tonight, coming back from the way he felt two days ago, that’s what college basketball is all about.”
The junior guard has shown marked improvement in his playmaking skills in his third season, but he came out aggressive — scoring 8 of the team’s first 10 points to push St. John’s to an early 10-3 lead. Another late flurry in the closing minutes of the half was capped with back-to-back 3’s to finish with 20 points in the opening half as St. John’s led 39-31 at intermission.
That lead blossomed with the emergence of Marvin Clark II who got hot from 3, connecting on 4 of 6 from deep to complement Ponds with 22 points while also grabbing 7 boards. All five starters scored in double digits as Mustapha Heron had 16, while Justin Simon scored 12 and LJ Figueroa finished with 11.
“When you have a lot of offensive players, the ball has to move,” said Mullin. “That goes two ways. If the ball doesn’t move, the offense becomes stagnant and can sometimes look selfish. If you move the ball and let the pass create energy, good things happen. Not only do we have good scorers, we have players with high IQ’s.
“After our last game, I wasn’t really disappointed with how we played. There were some adjustments that had to be made but they weren’t drastic. It was more on the fundamentals of basketball.”
The win was St. John’s largest margin of victory over an AP Top 25 opponent since 73-52 win over Pittsburgh on Dec. 9, 1998 at then-Alumni Hall. It was also the Red Storm’s first regular-season double-digit win in the Big East since Jan. 16, 2017 (vs. DePaul, 78-68).
