The St. John’s basketball defense has suffocated its opponents in conference play and there does not look to be any letup with this version of the Johnnies.

Rick Pitino watched his team put up one of the best defensive performances of any team this season, holding Georgetown to just 41 points – which were the least amount of points surrendered by the Red Storm in any conference game in program history.

It was the fewest number of points scored in any game against St. John’s since 2010.

“We looked like the ‘Bad News Hoyas’ out there, not even the ‘Bad News Bears,’” Georgetown head coach Ed Cooley said after the 25-point loss. “That actually is an embarrassment to the Bears.”

St. John’s held Georgetown to 24.6-percent shooting from the floor and 23.1-percent from 3-point range.

“That was a defensive clinic that they just put on and put a foot right in our ass,” Cooley continued.

The Hoyas were 3-for-24 to begin the game and 1-for-14 to close the game, which accounted for 25:24 of the action and shooting at a 10.5-percent clip. Georgetown was able to find some type of rhythm in the other 14:36, making 10-of-19 attempts.

St. John’s now ranks 4th in the country in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency, only trailing Houston, Tennessee, and Duke – all currently ranked in the Top-8 of the AP Poll – but the stout defense hasn’t taken the Red Storm players by surprise.

Kadary Richmond, a contender for Big East Defensive Player of the Year, expected the Johnnies to look this like on the defensive end of the floor but admitted he didn’t think it would happen this quickly.

“It’s a lot of new guys, but we’ve preached [defense] every day since the summer, so I like the results,” he said on Tuesday night.

Opponents are averaging 65.1 points per game against the Red Storm, which is tied for the 33rd best scoring defense in the country, and only 61.1 points per contest in league play.

Things will get more difficult rather quickly for St. John’s, playing Marquette, UConn, and Creighton four times in the month of February with the chance of strengthening its grip on first place in the Big East standings and a potential Top-4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.