No. 12 St. John’s will look to extend three important streaks and strengthen its lead in the Big East when it takes on No. 11 Marquette on Tuesday evening in New York.
The Red Storm (19-3, 10-1 Big East) are on an eight-game winning streak, including seven consecutive wins at Madison Square Garden, and they’ve won all 14 home games this season.
St. John’s moved into first place in the Big East on Saturday after a 68-66 win over Providence, combined with Marquette’s 77-69 loss to No. 25 UConn.
Marquette (18-4, 9-2), tied for second place with Creighton (16-6, 9-2), will face the Bluejays on Saturday.
Kadary Richmond led St. John’s with a season-high 24 points, hitting the game-winning jumper with three seconds left against Providence.
“It felt very good. The coaches, my teammates, they believed in me to give me the ball at the end of the game,” Richmond said, according to the New York Post. “We executed the play, and I made a big-time shot.”
Richmond has been in great form recently, going 10-for-14 from the field against Providence, making him 30-for-45 in the last four games.
“I think he’s playing really good basketball. We were going to win it or lose it with Kadary’s shot or his pass,” Red Storm coach Rick Pitino said. “He made a terrific shot. He was shooting the ball well all game. I’m really, really happy for him.”
RJ Luis added 19 points and eight rebounds, helping St. John’s win its eighth straight Big East game, their longest league winning streak since February 1992.
Luis (17.5), Zuby Ejiofor (14.4), and Richmond (11.9) are all averaging double-digit points for St. John’s. Ejiofor leads the team with 8.1 rebounds, while Richmond leads in assists (4.8) and steals (2.0).
While St. John’s has been improving, Marquette faced a setback on Saturday.
Kam Jones scored 22 points, and Chase Ross added 19, but the rest of the team struggled, making only 9 of 30 shots against UConn. Marquette also fell behind by 22 points in the first half.
“Defensively, it was a roller coaster for us,” Ross said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We had great stretches, and we had other stretches where we could have done better. So I feel like if we just negate negative stretches, we’ll be fine.”
Marquette head coach Shaka Smart believes it’s more complicated than that.
“We have to have an understanding that beating Marquette is a quality win, and there’s a level of desperation that the other teams have when they play us,” Smart said. “Whether that’s UConn, Butler, Villanova, it doesn’t matter.
“We talk about that a lot. Acceptance only works 100 percent. So if you 75 percent accept that, it ain’t going to work.”
Jones leads Marquette in points (19) and assists (6.2), while David Joplin contributes 14.5 points and a team-high 5.2 rebounds per game.
