Tounde Yessoufou Scores 23 as No. 13 St. John's Routs Iona 104-65 at the Garden

Rick Pitino's old program came to Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon with a 2-0 record, a former St. John's captain in its starting lineup and a little bit of momentum. It left with a 39-point loss and a long list of things to fix. St. John's buried Iona 104-65 in its first Garden date of the season, and the game was effectively over before the first media timeout.

Tounde Yessoufou led the Red Storm with 23 points on 9-of-14 shooting, including 4-of-7 from 3, to go with seven rebounds, three steals and two blocks in just 21 minutes. Ian Jackson added 17 points, 11 of them in the first half, and Quinn Ellis ran the show with 11 assists against one turnover. St. John's moves to 2-0. Iona falls to 2-1.

The numbers were lopsided in every direction. St. John's shot 55 percent, made 13 of 28 from deep, won the glass 38-28, committed four turnovers all day and outscored Iona 26-2 off turnovers. ESPN had the Red Storm leading for 98 percent of the game, with a largest lead of 43.

A 13-0 Answer

For about 30 seconds, this looked like a game. Jackson opened the scoring with a 25-foot 3 off an Ellis feed, and Sadiku Ibine Ayo, the two-time St. John's captain who transferred to Iona in the offseason, answered from the same distance to tie it 3-3.

That was the last time Iona was even. Jackson hit from 26 feet at 18:55 and again at 17:27. Yessoufou added a 3, Ellis scored on a layup and Keyshawn Hall made two free throws, and just like that it was 16-3 with 14:57 left in the half. Iona called timeout at 18:00 trailing 6-3 and came out of it to watch Jackson hit again.

Jackson's start mattered beyond the scoreboard. In the opener against Monmouth, foul trouble kept him from finding a rhythm until the second half. On Sunday he had three made 3s inside the first three minutes and never had to look over his shoulder at the scorer's table.

The Defense Did the Real Damage

The 3-point shooting got the highlights, but the defense built the margin. By SI's first-half count, Iona turned the ball over 15 times before the break while St. John's coughed it up twice. The Red Storm finished with nine steals to Iona's one, with Yessoufou and Ellis grabbing three apiece and Avery Brown adding two off the bench.

Those giveaways became points, 26 of them, and St. John's piled up 48 points in the paint to Iona's 22. The Gaels hung around for a stretch midway through the half, getting free throws from Oliver Sassella and Ore Odutayo and a Kevon Vanderhorst 3 that made it 33-19 with 7:43 left. Then the Red Storm closed the half with two runs that ended any suspense.

The first was a 9-0 burst: Yessoufou layup, Hall layup, a Ruben Prey putback, another Yessoufou layup and an Ellis free throw for a 42-19 lead. After an Odutayo dunk, St. John's ripped off 10 more in a row. Hall hit a 3, Yessoufou made a free throw, Hall scored again, Reed Bailey finished at the rim and Zsombor Maronka made two at the line. Ellis added a layup with 52 seconds left, and the Red Storm went to the locker room up 54-23.

Nine different St. John's players scored in the first half. That is the kind of balance a team wants when its best player is still settling in.

Yessoufou Takes the Second Half

If the first half belonged to the defense, the opening minutes of the second belonged to Yessoufou. The Baylor transfer, who was eased back from a minor calf issue and came off the bench in the opener, hit a 3 off a Prey pass 24 seconds into the half. He followed with a layup, another 3 off an Ellis feed at 16:29, a layup at 14:20 and one more 3 at 12:56. That was 13 points in the first seven minutes of the half, and those were his last points of the day. Yessoufou was on the Naismith Trophy preseason watch list, and this is the version of him that put him there: disruptive on the ball and lethal on the catch.

Jackson chipped in two more layups, both from Ellis, as part of a 7-0 run that pushed the lead to 70-31 at 15:30. Lefteris Liotopoulos and Maronka each knocked down a 3 off the bench, and when Liotopoulos made two of three free throws at 10:04, it was 85-43.

The rest was garbage time, and Iona actually won the final 10 minutes 22-19. Nobody at the Garden was keeping track. Kyle Cuffe Jr. made the most of five minutes with seven points, and Casper Pohto scored in a one-minute cameo.

The Ellis Effect

Yessoufou and Jackson combined for 40 points, but Ellis might have been the most important player on the floor. The point guard finished with seven points, five rebounds, 11 assists, three steals and one turnover in 24 minutes, and several of those assists went to Jackson on catch-and-shoot 3s or cuts to the rim. As a team St. John's assisted on 22 of its 37 baskets.

The other Monmouth hero had a quieter day. Hall, the Auburn transfer who scored 26 in his debut, finished with 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting and four rebounds in 23 minutes, and that was fine. He did not need to carry anything. Prey had five points, five rebounds and three assists as the starting center, and freshman center Theo Edema logged 10 minutes and went 2-for-2 at the line.

The bench was a real weapon. Maronka scored 12 on 3-of-4 shooting, Liotopoulos added 10 with a pair of 3s, Bailey handed out three assists, and the reserves combined for 39 points. For a team that leaned hard on Hall against Monmouth, that depth is the story worth carrying into the next few weeks.

A Hard Day for the Gaels

Give Iona this much: the Gaels made their free throws, going 11-of-13 from the line, and hit 10 3s. Odutayo was efficient off the bench with 12 points on 4-of-5 shooting. Ibine Ayo, who helped St. John's win back-to-back BIG EAST titles, scored 11 against the old program, and Keyshawn Mitchell added eight points and a team-high five rebounds.

But Dan Geriot's team could not protect the ball. Iona's 19 turnovers led to 26 St. John's points, and the Gaels managed one steal of their own. Vanderhorst, who came in averaging 18.5 points after a 27-point game against Vermont, was held to five points on 2-of-7 shooting with three turnovers. Sassella had four assists and four turnovers. This was the same team that opened Thursday's win over NJIT with a 28-0 run. Sunday it was on the wrong end of that kind of afternoon.

The Pitino subplot added some flavor. Pitino coached Iona from 2020 to 2023, went 64-22 and took the Gaels to two NCAA Tournaments before taking the St. John's job. Ibine Ayo started a college career under Pitino in New Rochelle before following him to Queens. Sunday was a reminder of how far the two programs have drifted apart since then.

What It Means

This was the 12th meeting in a series that dates to December 1946, and St. John's now leads it 9-3. It was also the first of 13 regular-season dates at the Garden this season, a building where the Red Storm had gone 25-2 since the start of the 2024-25 season. Make that 26-2.

There are bigger tests coming, and soon. A 39-point win over a mid-major does not prove much on its own. What it does show is that St. John's can win a game without Hall as the leading scorer, that Jackson is comfortable when the whistles stay quiet, and that Yessoufou is healthy enough to dominate in short bursts. For a team ranked No. 13 in the preseason, those were the right boxes to check.

If you missed the opener, read our recap of Keyshawn Hall's 26-point debut against Monmouth. For full stats, see the ESPN box score (opens in a new tab) and the St. John's game center (opens in a new tab).

Sources: ESPN box score, team stats and play-by-play, St. John's Athletics, CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, Field Level Media. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

Next up for St. John's is Colgate at Carnesecca Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 11, followed by Syracuse at the Garden on Nov. 15.

Photo: St. John's Athletics (file photo).