Now the rest of the Big East knows that St. John’s coming

It’s one thing to prepare for this St. John’s basketball team remotely, watching video of its games and looking for trends and statistical trends. Facing it on the field is something else entirely.

The eight Big East opponents the Red Storm had faced before Wednesday found out just that. There is examining how they defend, and then there is the experience of being defended to the teeth by them. There’s watching them relentlessly break down the backboards, and then there’s the reality of trying to fight them. The opponent’s coach can be heard after the opponent’s remark about how hard St. John’s plays, and then there are attempts to compete against it.

Well, the Red Storm lost a slight edge in the four days leading up to Wednesday night’s clash with Xavier at Madison Square Garden: the element of surprise.

On Saturday, they grabbed first place in the conference standings, and on Monday, they were anointed the 20th-ranked team in the nation in the AP Top 25 poll. And with Wednesday night’s game against the Musketeers, they entered a phase of the schedule where they must take on teams that have already seen their best and defining qualities firsthand.

It had a profound effect on the Musketeers after St. John’s beat them by 10 points in Cincinnati on January 7th. Not prone to exaggeration, Xavier coach Sean Miller said afterward, “If you want to talk about a hard-playing, hard-nosed group, I don’t know if there’s a team in the country that embodies those qualities better than them.”

Xavier was picked to finish third in a preseason poll by Big East coaches and had played in five Quad I games before St. John’s arrived at the Cintas Center, yet the players’ experience facing the Storm made them look in the mirror.

Zach Freemantle said in an interview with FOX broadcaster John Fanta on social media that a players-only meeting was held after the St. John’s loss, where he and fellow veterans Jerome Hunter and Ryan Conwell delivered the following message: “This is not what Xavier basketball is. We have to play a lot harder. We have to be rough, not pretty.”

The Musketeers won their next three including Saturday’s stunner at No. 10 Marquette.

And asked about the rematch with the Red Storm, he replied “They bullied us. We just gotta show . . . you don’t come and punk us like that. We took it once. We won’t take it again.”

That was evident in the way Xavier played in the first 20 minutes en route to a 10-point shutout Wednesday. The Storm defended hard, gave up no fast break points and were even with them on the back boards.

When St. John’s held a practice Monday at the Garden after the Knicks game, coach Rick Pitino sounded more than aware that the teams would be ready to try to match the intensity that has become a Storm trademark.

“They were picked third for a reason in our conference, and we got them on the offensive glass,” he said, referring to St. John’s remarkable 20 offensive rebounds in the teams’ first meeting. “We know what Sean Miller is like. They’re going to block from the moment that game ended until now. . . . We know we got them on any given night, but if we don’t bring it another night, they beat us.”

“I’ve seen them be a lot more aggressive, especially on the defensive end,” Zuby Ejiofor said of the Musketeers. “Their will to win is much stronger now and we just have to come out of the more aggressive team.”

The challenge St. John’s faced with Xavier – defeating a team that has already had the Red Strom experience and lost – is what it’s going to be for the rest of the month and through most of the rest of the season. St. John plays on Jan. 28 at Georgetown — two weeks after beating the Hoyas by five at the Garden — and on Feb. 1 hosts Providence — which it beat by two points on the road in a wild game in late December.

Pitino is a Hall of Fame coach for a reason and knows the Storm can’t play the exact same game it did against any previous opponent.

“Every single day you have to add things because the people I’m coaching against in every single game are just as good as us,” Pitino said earlier this month. “If it’s not broken and you’re winning, you’ve got to break it. because they’re going to see what you’re doing well. And if you’re not breaking it and innovating and getting creative and giving them things that the opposition doesn’t know will game come down to a shot at the last second.”

Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to cover high schools, colleges and baseball after 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.