St. John’s confident Deivon Smith will get things going after ‘rusty’ return

Deivon Smith was understandably rusty in his return. 

The senior point guard missed 9 of his 10 shots in 28 minutes off the bench in St. John’s 68-66 win over Providence at the Garden Saturday afternoon. 

Smith had missed three of the previous four games with a bruised right shoulder.

He seemed to be favoring it initially, but wasn’t as concerned about it as the game went on. 

“I think he’s really rusty. He had two practices where he didn’t shoot it well, but it’s to be expected,” coach Rick Pitino said after St. John’s won its eighth straight game and completed a season sweep of Providence. “He’s a pro. He’ll come back, he listens, he’ll do the right things.” 

Smith did have six assists, three rebounds and three steals, so he contributed in other ways beyond scoring.

At one point late in the first half, he appeared to get hit hard on the shoulder on a screen and winced.

But he played through the pain and sank a 3-pointer, his lone made field goal.

From then on, Smith looked more like himself. 

The Utah transfer initially suffered the injury in the first half of a Jan. 11 win over Villanova.

He attempted to return a week later against Seton Hall but wasn’t right.

The hope is he’s back for good now. 

The game featured a lengthy delay at the start due to problems with the shot clock.

After the first three possessions, play was stopped for several minutes as the officials and scorer’s table got the issues corrected. 

Saturday’s crowd of 19,196 was a season high for St. John’s and the second most in the Pitino era after last year’s home game against Connecticut.

St. John’s completed its first season sweep of Providence since 2021.

The Johnnies have won double-digit league games in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2013-15, when Steve Lavin was the coach.