St. John's poor shooting caught up to them at worst time

The 2024-25 season was an important one for the St. John's basketball program. They won the Big East championship for the first time in 25 years, returned to relevance on a national level and established an identity under an all-time great coach — Rick Pitino — that should make them a force in the coming seasons. 

They are back on the map. 

Their magical season ended on Saturday in the Round of 32 when they were on the losing end of a 75-66 decision against No. 10 seed Arkansas.

It was not a surprise as to what ultimately did them in.

They simply could not make their shots.

St. John's shot just 28% from the field (21-of-75) and only 9% (2-of-22) from three-point range.

Nobody was immune to the struggles, including Big East Player of the Year RJ Luis Jr., who finished the game on the bench after shooting 3-of-17 from the field. 

None of this should have been too much of a surprise for anybody who's watched this St. John's team all season. For all of their strengths defensively, and for all of their grit and toughness that helped define the culture of the roster, they were a consistently poor shooting team all season. Especially from deep. 

The Red Storm finished the season 155th in the nation in overall field goal percentage (45.1%) and 333rd (30.8%) from three-point range. 

If there was an Achilles heel with this team, that was it. 

It showed itself at the worst possible team on Saturday. 

That has to be the primary focus for Pitino going into the offseason and in preparation for next season. Especially now that the new standard has been set for the program where winning is again going to become the expectation. Their style of play this season worked great all regular season and throughout the Big East tournament. But when the competition gets tougher deep into the tournament, and when every game becomes one against a top-tier team, toughness and defense are only going to take you so far. At that point, you have to make some shots.