No. 5 St. John's goes cold late in 103-96 loss to No. 15 Alabama

Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News on Nov 8, 2025

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NEW YORK — Rick Pitino knew No. 15 Alabama would present a unique early-season litmus test for No. 5 St. John’s.

Behind an unmatched pace of play, Alabama led the country in scoring both of the last two seasons, and it certainly hasn’t slowed down this year.

“They shoot the ball, on average, within 15 seconds,” Pitino said ahead of Saturday afternoon’s game at Madison Square Garden. “We’ve not seen anything like that in the three years I’ve been here.”

And while St. John’s kept up with the Crimson Tide for much of Saturday’s non-conference heavyweight bout, Alabama’s rapid-fire offense proved too much to overcome.

St. John’s lost, 103-96, to fall to 1-1 on the young season.

“They were the better basketball team tonight,” Pitino said. “We played hard. We fought. It was exciting basketball. But they were better. We were not locked-in together defensively.”

Saturday’s game was dominated by Alabama’s guards, including Labaron Philon Jr., who led the Tide with 25 points on 10-of-17 shooting, and Aden Holloway, who scored 21 points on 9 of 18.

Latrell Wrightsell added 17 points off the bench and finished 4 of 8 on 3-pointers.

“We could not guard them off the dribble,” Pitino said. “Very few teams can. They’ve got excellent offensive talent.”

St. John’s traded baskets with Alabama early behind a hot start from center Zuby Ejiofor, who scored 21 points on 7-of-8 shooting in the first half.

Power forward Bryce Hopkins added 15 first-half points for St. John’s, but the Red Storm’s backcourt struggled to keep up.

Ian Jackson, Joson Sanon and Oziyah Sellers combined for six points on 1 of 10 shooting before halftime. Outside of Ejiofor and Hopkins, the Johnnies shot 1 of 12 in the first half.

St. John’s led, 38-37, at the 4:27 mark of the first half, but Alabama went into halftime on a 16-6 run, which Holloway capped with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to put the Tide up, 53-44, at the break.

“On offense, they were too quick,” Pitino said of the St. John’s guards. “They wanted to play like Alabama, and that’s the one thing we wanted to stay away from: quick-shoot. We were quick-shooting a lot, and not letting them have to play defense. And then we flipped it at the other end and couldn’t guard them off the bounce.

“Our guards didn’t play particularly well tonight, but that’s because they have great guards.”

St. John’s delivered an 8-0 run midway through the second half, and it took an 81-80 lead when Sanon made a 3-pointer with 8:13 remaining.

But the Tide retook the lead for good with 5:44 left in regulation when a 3-pointer by forward Taylor Bol Bowen put them up, 89-87.

Philon iced the game by scoring on three consecutive possessions, including a 3-pointer with 2:00 left that gave Alabama a 10-point advantage.

St. John’s, meanwhile, did not score a field goal between the 6:09 and 1:22 marks of the second half, managing only one point during that dry spell.

“We were a little bit stagnant,” said Ejiofor, who finished with a game-high 27 points and 10 rebounds. “We didn’t create the ball movement before trying to get into our motions. Guys were just standing around watching one guy dribble the ball, or myself, so that’s something we’ve got to figure out in practice.”

St. John’s is navigating sky-high expectations after winning the Big East’s regular-season and conference tournament championships last year, then importing the highest-rated transfer class in the country.

The No. 5 preseason ranking was the highest in school history.

The Johnnies flexed their might in Monday night’s season-opening 108-74 victory over Quinnipiac, the favorite to win the MAAC. But Alabama presented a much greater challenge as the Red Storm’s first ranked opponent of the regular season.

They just played a great team in the second game of the season. That’s really what it comes down to,” Pitino said.

“When you give up 103 points, you’re not gonna win. We don’t have the ability to score 106, 103. … This game is only going to help us grow as a basketball team. We’ve got eight new players.”

Saturday marked the first of 12 regular-season games at the Garden for the Johnnies, who will next play there on Dec. 6 against another SEC opponent in Ole Miss.

Alabama and Ole Miss are part of a non-conference gauntlet for St. John’s, which is also set to face Baylor, Iowa State and Kentucky in neutral-site games.

“We play these early games so we can find where we need to get better, and obviously we know we need to get better at one-on-one defense,” Piitno said, adding, “I’m disappointed we lost, but we certainly learned a lot, and we’ll get better from it.”

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