For many St. John’s basketball fans, Sunday’s 66-63 loss to Georgia feels like the same old Johnnies. But the numbers tell a different story. The flood of analytics might look like alphabet soup — offSCC%, defMR%, EFG%, and more jargon that could make your head spin. But unpack these numbers and they reveal a team that’s performing at an elite level, even if the 5-2 record doesn’t show it.
Let’s start with the obvious: Sunday’s shooting was brutal. The team shot so poorly (32% effective field goal percentage, according to Torvik) that it wasn’t just their worst showing this season, it was dramatically worse than their previous low of 52%. This was like a Rhodes Scholar getting an F. So don’t sweat, it’s so unusual it’s likely a one-time thing.
There’s more good news. Basketball analytics are like movie reviews – when every major critic says a film is good, it probably is. I trust Rotten Tomatoes, and four ranking systems — we’ll go with Ken Pom, Torvik, Haslametrics, and ShotQuality — have St. John’s rated among the nation’s elite: 14th, 11th, 33rd, and 34th. That’s like getting four thumbs up from different critics.
Even more telling? According to ShotQuality’s Justin Perri, host @ShotQualityBets, St. John’s had an 84% chance to beat Georgia based on the shots they were getting. In other words, if they played that exact same game 100 times, taking the exact same shots, they’d win 84 of them. They just happened to catch the wrong end of probability this time.
Context matters too. The team played three tough games in less than seven days – and a beatdown of Virginia, who snuck into the NCAAs last year ahead of the Johnnies. Despite this challenging schedule, they still showed their potential by beating Virginia more convincingly than Tennessee did. Perri says “that kind of matters.”
The deeper numbers are even more encouraging. According to Haslametrics, St. John’s ranks first in controlling the pace of their offense (offSCC%) and fourth in forcing opponents into tough situations defensively (defMR%). Here’s another positive sign: KenPom ranks St. John’s as one of the “unluckiest” teams in the country (348th out of 362). While that sounds bad, it actually suggests they’re due for better results, like a coin that’s landed on tails ten times in a row – heads are bound to come up eventually.
Looking at individual players, there’s plenty of room for growth — along with some puzzles. Kadary Richmond, currently playing like the team’s seventh-best player, according to Perri, has proven he can be a star. The coaching staff just needs to figure out his role. Is he a point guard or does he belong in the post? Aaron Scott’s rough shooting (4-for-18 in two games) looks more like fatigue than inability – his overall numbers show he’s better than 89% of players at making shots. The team has other elite shooters too, with both Scott and Jordan Wilcher ranking among the top 14% of all players in shooting ability, according to ShotQuality. And RJ Luis, when he’s not in foul trouble, is an elite player.
What does all this mean for St. John’s season? The numbers suggest they’re built to contend for third place in the Big East, which typically means a tournament bid. More importantly, they look like a team that could be dangerous once they’re there.
Yes, losing to Georgia hurts. And yes, the team’s margin for error shrinks. They probably need to win the rest of their non-conference schedule and then win 12 to 14 games in the Big East, which will include tough road games against Marquette, Xavier, and Providence, not to mention UConn. DePaul and Georgetown will likely improve on their dismal seasons last year, so those will be contested.
But remember, it’s November basketball. With three days to rest before facing Harvard at Madison Square Garden, they have time to reset. The data isn’t just offering blind hope – it’s showing us a team that’s doing most things right, even if the results haven’t caught up yet.
But I get it. Most Johnnies fans don’t remember what it was like in the 1980s when Lou Carnesecca and St. John’s basketball owned the city. For St. John’s fans wondering whether to worry, here’s the bottom line: the numbers suggest this team isn’t just good — they’re potentially great. They’re creating good shots, controlling games, and playing elite defense.
And they’ve got a Hall of Fame coach named Rick Pitino. The shots will start falling, and when they do, this could be a special season for the Red Storm.
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