Shortly before 6:30 p.m, the Garden went dark. Pyrotechnics, flames and all the bells and whistles of a Knicks game followed.
It, however, was as good as it would get for St. John’s in Rick Pitino’s MSG debut.
The Johnnies were outclassed Monday night at both ends of the floor, unable to deal with Michigan point guard Dug McDaniel or the Wolverines’ deep front line. St. John’s never recovered from a poor close to the first half and suffered an ugly 89-73 loss in the annual Gavitt Games in front of 14,188.
“I am so proud of Madison Square Garden, and the job they do for us. It was awesome. Unfortunately. we didn’t match their effort of putting it together,” Pitino said. “I’m so thankful for the fans that came out; they were great. Students were fabulous. We just couldn’t match the Garden, we couldn’t match the fans, and most importantly, we couldn’t match Michigan.”
After an offseason of hype and expectations, this was a buzzkill, a shaky performance that few saw coming. Daniss Jenkins, Pitino’s point guard who followed him from Iona University, couldn’t stay with McDaniel and neither could any of his teammates.
It looked like a brand new team.
Ball movement was poor, with too much one-on-one.
St. John’s was scattered on defense, missing assignments. Pitino had repeatedly said it was going to take time for this group of newcomers to jell, and he wasn’t kidding.
The Johnnies (1-1) looked more like the group that lost an exhibition game to Division II Pace than the one that was impressive in blowing out Stony Brook in the regular-season opener last Tuesday.
They appeared to be moving in slow motion, thinking rather than reacting.
As a team, St. John’s shot 36 percent from the field and committed more turnovers (15) than it had assists (11).
Pitino was most upset with that side of the ball, calling his team’s play selfish and uncharacteristic of the group he’s had since the summer.
“Our defense tonight was not good, but I’m going to give all the credit to Michigan,” Pitino said. “Our offense shocked the s–t out of, shocked the hell out of me that we didn’t share the ball and move the basketball. Those are things that we have to do.”
Joel Soriano had 15 points and nine rebounds to lead the Johnnies and Jordan Dingle and Jenkins each added 10 points.
McDaniel was the best player on the floor by a wide margin, notching 26 points, seven assists and six rebounds and Nimari Burnett added 21 for Michigan (3-0), which shot a blistering 51.6 percent from the field and hit 11 of 26 3-pointers.
“Let’s understand something: [McDaniel] played 38 minutes and played awesome,” Pitino said. “He had seven assists and two turnovers, two steals. He was brilliant.”
Michigan took a commanding 10-point lead into the break following an 11-3 run over the final 2:36 of the opening half.
It only got worse from there — much worse.
The Wolverines started the second half by scoring 18 of the first 26 points, building a 20-point lead that was never threatened.
They led by as many as 26, and cruised to the one-sided victory.
With the three-game Charleston Classic coming up beginning Thursday, Pitino rested his starters for much of the final 10 minutes.
It will be a fast turnaround.
St. John’s meets North Texas on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. It won’t have much time to lick its wounds.
“We do it every game: You go over the good, the bad and the teaching points. Tomorrow they will be humiliated with what they did offensively,” Pitino said. “Yes, they’ll be humiliated defensively, but they just got beat by a much better basketball team. Where they will be humiliated is with their selfish offense.
“They’re not like that as people, they’re not like that as players. They’ll be embarrassed by that, and it will be a good lesson for them because it happens to pro teams, happens to college teams. It happens all the time.”
The legendary coach added: “They’ll be loaded for bear against North Texas, because they’ll be very upset at themselves. We won’t even have to raise our voices.”