Players and coaches came together, giving several different voices within the program the chance to be heard.

St. John’s was 0-3 in the Big East, off to the kind of slow start that has derailed seasons, coming off an 18-point home loss to Creighton.

“We knew that something [different] needed to take place,” junior guard Greg Williams Jr.

The focus of the meeting was to stress the importance of everyone getting on the same page. The Red Storm had to play together. They had to be connected. They had to share the ball and defend as one unit. Help if someone was beaten off the dribble. Make the extra pass.

Sunday night, facing a rare must-win December game with a long layoff to follow, those changes were evident. The Johnnies played with more focus and purpose. They had a sense of urgency. They were intense and communicated. They built an early 16-point lead. When it got cut to two, they rebuilt it to 20.

“It was a step in the right direction,” Williams said after St. John’s notched its first league win, 94-83, over Georgetown at Carnesecca Arena. “We just played together and we played for each other. We played with a lot of trust and it led to a lot of good things.”

There were fewer defensive lapses. Fewer one-pass possessions. It wasn’t a perfect performance, but it was an improvement. It was a step in the right direction. A 1-3 league record beats 0-4.

St. John’s (6-4, 1-3) put the game away with a 16-3 run, turning a six-point edge into a 19-point bulge with 8:31 remaining. The newcomers — Isaih Moore, Posh Alexander and Vince Cole — produced all of the offense in the run. Williams was a consistent offensive force, scoring a career-high 26 points, and leading scorer Julian Champagnie had one of his best all-around performances of the year, notching 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists. Cole, a junior college All-American, scored 17 points in his return to the starting lineup, after producing just 18 in his first three conference games.

“Some guys, when they come off the bench, they just try and fit in, and I want him to do more than that because he has that kind of talent,” coach Mike Anderson said.

St. John’s shared the ball, dishing out 19 assists, and enjoyed balanced scoring, with five players in double figures. The defense, a surprising weakness for much of the year, limited the Hoyas (3-4, 1-2) to 43 percent shooting from the field. The Storm blocked seven shots. Anderson saw a different attitude early on the defensive end, one he has preached the team to take on over the last week.

“We didn’t come out with the [expectation] that we were going to beat people with our offense, and I thought that was the difference in the game,” Anderson said. “We came out with a defensive mindset, trusting in one another and sometimes you have those setbacks in order to have some comebacks.”

Now they can enter this break relieved, and look to string together consecutive wins when DePaul comes to Queens on Jan. 2. Perhaps, St. John’s found a winning formula.

“We know what our potential is,” Williams said. “When we’re playing right, a lot of great things happen. It was just a matter of us playing how we know we can.”