In Chris Mullin’s first season as coach at St. John’s, tip-off times were usually appointments for embarrassment.
The Red Storm failed to win double-digit games for the first time in 11 years. They amassed a school-record 16-game losing streak and finished with their worst record in the Big East, ending with their second-worst win percentage in 86 years.
But on Tuesday night at Carnesecca Arena, Mullin’s team hit a new low.
St. John’s suffered its fifth straight defeat and worst humiliation of the past two regular seasons with a 79-72 loss to lowly Delaware State, which had lost five straight games and had registered its only other win of the season against a Division III team.
In a game St. John’s expected to easily snap its losing streak — a la back-to-back season-opening blowout wins over Bethune-Cookman and Binghamton — the Red Storm (2-5) led for just 46 seconds, giving the Hornets their first non-conference win against a Division I team in 21 tries, their first such win since Dec. 17, 2014, when they defeated St. Francis Brooklyn.
Facing the 11th-worst team in the country — according to the advanced analytics site, Kenpom.com — guard Federico Mussini admitted St. John’s looked past the Hornets after waging competitive battles against Michigan State and VCU over the weekend.
“I think that was our problem,” Mussini said. “When we play big teams, everybody is high and everybody is ready from the beginning. So we’ve just got to respect everybody.
“This really hurts us because we talked about it. We made sure we were going to come out tough and play hard, but we didn’t. We have to work on that.”
St. John’s had the edge at every position, holding superior size and speed, but the more talented team opted against using its inherent advantages, opting to spend most of the evening on the perimeter.
With Delaware State playing zone defense all night, the Red Storm attempted a 3-pointer on 16 of their first 21 field goals and hit just 32 percent of their season-high 37 attempts. They didn’t get to the free-throw line even once in the second half.
“Some shots we were just rushing them,” said Bashir Ahmed, who led St. John’s with 19 points. “I guess we thought we had open looks, but some of the shots we took weren’t good shots. We have to do better moving the ball around and being more patient and finding the right shots.”
Meanwhile, the Hornets were patient and aggressive, attacking St. John’s lethargic defense to shoot 64 percent from the field and take a 38-34 halftime lead. Behind Devin Morgan’s 26 points, Delaware State led by as much as 15, prompting boos from the Queens crowd in the second half.
“Our defense was horrible, one-on-one and as a team,” Mullin said. “I thought we lost trust in each other.”
In the final minutes, Delaware State committed multiple turnovers and appeared headed for a meltdown, with its lead trimmed to six with less than three minutes remaining, but the Red Storm’s shooting struggles cemented what seemed impossible.
Even after last season, the worst hadn’t been seen yet.
“We didn’t put enough energy in,” Mussini said. “We talked a lot about it this week after four losses and we just got to put in more energy in and be more hungry when we go out there.”