Rick Pitino sure has a lot of coaching to do in the next nine days.
St. John’s didn’t look ready for the regular season on Sunday.
Eight days after knocking off Rutgers in an exhibition game for charity, the Johnnies took a major step back.
They were shaky at both ends of the floor in a dismal 63-59 loss to Division II Pace University at Carnesecca Arena.
St. John’s shooting was woeful, its defense was inconsistent and its effort wasn’t there for large stretches.
It was without projected starters Joel Soriano (calf), Jordan Dingle (left hand) and RJ Luis (left hand), and only nine players appeared in the game.
St. John’s trailed 13-5 out of the gate and never led in the wire-to-wire defeat.
It shot a jarring 25.8 percent from the field as a team, was out-rebounded by 12 and never really made a run at Pace after trailing by 15 early in the second half.
The Johnnies missed 34 of 40 shots after halftime.
Chris Ledlum struggled in particular, missing 14 of his 16 shot attempts.
Nahiem Alleyne led St. John’s in scoring with 22 points and Brady Dunlap added 10.
Zuby Ejiofor, starting in place of Soriano, went 3-for-11 from the free throw line, one of the many offensive lowlights for the Red Storm.
St. John’s last lost an exhibition game in 2015, at the start of the Chris Mullin era, to St. Thomas Aquinas.
That team was coached by Tobin Anderson, Pitino’s replacement at Iona College.
Pace reached the Division II NCAA Tournament each of the last two years.
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