St. John’s needs more from its guards in one glaring area

Rick Pitino wants more from his backcourt.

No. 5 St. John’s beat No. 12 No. 7 Michigan Losing the show on Saturday night at the Garden, and it wasn’t the fault of big men Zuby Ejiofor, Dillon Mitchell and Bryce Hopkins.

They had 23 rebounds between them.

The result was that Dylan Darling, Ian Jackson, Oziah Sellers and Jason Sanon came together for just one film.

“I’ve been very fortunate in my coaching career with guards that bounce the ball, and I have a group here that doesn’t bounce the ball,” Pitino said. “We have to do something about it. They are good enough athletes to bounce back.

“The most obvious weakness (in our team) is the goalkeepers not rebounding the ball.”

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Sellers, the team’s starting goalkeeper, was scoreless in eight error-filled minutes.

“Osiah made a lot of mistakes in practice, and we did a bad job as coaches of calling fouls,” Pitino said. “We let him get away with putting his hands on people. That was a great learning experience for him as well.”

Jackson was dealing with ankle soreness after missing several practices this week. Overall, he struggled, shooting 1-for-8 from the field in 21 minutes off the bench.

Pitino said: “I’m not worried, he’s going to play better than he did tonight.” “We have to work on Ian, he has a little bruise, he’s not coughing. But he’ll play better than he did tonight. I have confidence in him.”

Michigan star Jaksel Lindborg scored 25 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. He was initially committed to St. John’s under former coach Mike Anderson. Lendeborg said he had a chip on his shoulder going against the Johnnies.

When asked about the big man, Pitino described him as “a great player.”