NEW YORK — Needless to say, Villanova was flat.
The high-powered No. 6 Wildcats had just shot 7 of 30 from the floor and limped to a slim 28-27 halftime lead over St. John’s, a team that entered Sunday’s contest at Madison Square Garden on an 11-game losing streak and hadn’t won a game since Dec. 13.
A spark was needed for a shorthanded Wildcats team that was missing the presence of senior center Daniel Ochefu because of a concussion.
After the intermission, one of Villanova’s veterans took matters into his own hands to provide that spark. But it wasn’t leading scorer Josh Hart or senior leader Ryan Arcidiacono.
It was junior forward Kris Jenkins, whose three-point shot from the corner of the Garden floor shortly after the second half began was the rallying point in Villanova’s 68-53 win over Chris Mullin’s gritty St. John’s squad.
The victory pushed the Big East-leading Wildcats’ record to 18-3, 8-1 in the conference.
“I thought the first play of the second half with Kris Jenkins getting an open three, we don’t want to respond by whether our shots go in or not, but sometimes players do,” Villanova head coach Jay Wright said. “I think that helped.”
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After that Jenkins trey, the Wildcats went on a 22-7 run and put away the Red Storm for good.
But it wasn’t just that one shot that defined Jenkins’ impact in Sunday’s victory.
He poured in 14 points, including 12 from beyond the arc. His four threes accounted for 57 percent of the Wildcats’ makes (7 of 22 as a team for 32 percent) from downtown on the day.
He also added a career-high 11 rebounds for the first double-double of his collegiate career.
“Going into every game, I try to focus on rebounding and today I was just able to get to them,” Jenkins said after Sunday’s victory. “Daniel usually grabs most of the rebounds, so with him being out, it’s next guy up and I was able to make my way to a couple more.”
All told, the Wildcats won Sunday afternoon’s rebounding battle by a 48-35 margin. Going into Sunday, Villanova was the tied with Georgetown as the second-worst rebounding team in the conference with just 35.7 boards per game.
Jenkins entered the matinee at the Garden averaging just 3.2 boards per game. His career high for rebounds in a game was seven, which came against DePaul in January 2015 and against Farleigh Dickinson this past November.
But he topped that career high on the defensive glass alone on Sunday, when he pulled down eight.
The Wildcats needed all of 11 of Jenkins’ rebounds on Sunday with Ochefu’s team-leading 8.3 boards per game resting up back at home.
Wright’s hope is that Jenkins uses his performance on Sunday, especially his defensive rebounding effort, as a launching pad for the rest of the season.
“We chart rebounding in practice every day and name a rebounding winner and it’s always Daniel or [junior forward] Darryl [Reynolds],” Wright said. “I think guys just get used to that.
“I think Kris can learn from this today and realize that if we’ve got him going after the boards like that, that’s really going to make us a better defensive team.”