QUEENS, N.Y. – Five Seawolves put up double-digit points, but Stony Brook ultimately fell to St. John's, 90-74, on the road in the 2023-24 season opener on Tuesday evening at Carnesecca Arena. Dean Noll poured in a team-high 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting, while Andre Snoddy added 13 points and seven rebounds and Keenan Fitzmorris chipped in with 11 points off the bench.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The two sides traded baskets on the opening few possessions of the contest before a Joel Soriano slam gave the home team an 8-6 advantage heading into the first media timeout of the night. Stony Brook's defense registered a pair of blocks in the opening three minutes, featuring a highlight-reel worthy rejection by Tyler Stephenson-Moore.
After a pair of free throws by Noll evened the score at 8-8, St. John's used an 11-2 run to build a 19-10 lead. Back-to-back baskets from Noll brought the Seawolves back within five points before the Red Storm scored 12 of the next 14 points to put Stony Brook in a 15-point hole.
Some much-needed production from the Seawolves' bench, including baskets from Fitzmorris, Toby Onyekonwu and Sabry Philip helped Stony Brook begin to climb back. Trailing by 12 points with less than three minutes remaining in the half, Snoddy connected on the Seawolves' first three-pointer of the evening and added a three-point play the hard way to make it a six-point game with 90 seconds to play. A Daniss Jenkins triple, followed by a turnover and a fastbreak dunk by Chris Ledlum flipped the script, sending the Seawolves into the locker room trailing 41-30.
Noll opened up second-half action with a three-point play, narrowing the Red Storm's lead to eight points, but it would be as close as Stony Brook would get the rest of the way. The Seawolves would trail by as many as 20 points after a Soriano trifecta with 13 minutes to play. The deficit would grow to as large as 23 points during the final 10 minutes of action, though baskets down the stretch by Fitzmorris and Onyekonwu kept the Red Storm honest.
Ultimately, Stony Brook would fall 90-74, despite double-digit scoring efforts from five different student-athletes.
STATS AND NOTES
- Noll led all Stony Brook scorers with 15 points in his first game action since March of 2022. The graduate guard shot 6-of-12 from the field and finished a perfect 3-3 from the charity stripe.
- Snoddy, making his Seawolves' debut, added 13 points and connected on a pair of triples. He added a team-high seven rebounds, four of which were on the offensive glass.
- Fitzmorris (11), Onyekonwu (11) and Stephenson-Moore (10) also finished with double-digit points in the loss.
- Chris Maidoh, also making his Stony Brook debut, grabbed six rebounds, dished out a team-leading three assists and registered five steals and three blocks on the defensive end for the Seawolves.
- Stony Brook shot 29-66 (43.9%) from the field, but struggled from beyond the arc (4-16).
- The Seawolves won the turnover battle (15-10), turning St. John's miscues into 19 points.
- The Red Storm out-did Stony Brook in paint points (36-24) and finished with 18 offensive rebounds and a 43-30 advantage on the glass overall.
- As a team, St. John's shot better than 50 percent from the floor (34-66) and connected on half of its three-point tries (11-22).
- Stony Brook has now fallen in its season-opening game in five consecutive seasons and falls to 0-10 all-time against St. John's.
QUOTES FROM THE SEAWOLVES
"Their pressure and length on the perimeter, we had a really hard time getting by them," head coach Geno Ford noted postgame. "In the second half, we fixed some things and we were way better. We shot 54 percent from the field, we had seven assists in the second half against a really good team that was playing at a really high level. You have to give them a lot of credit, but I really like our team. We'll just get better and better."
NEXT UP
Stony Brook plays its home opener, hosting St. Joseph's (LI) on Friday, November 10. Tip-off from Island Federal Arena is set for 6:31 p.m. and the contest will be streamed live on FloHoops and simulcasted on SNY.
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