St. John's has rough second half, loses to Marquette
St. John's RJ Luis Jr. shoots against Marquette during the second half of an NCAA basketball game Saturday in Milwaukee. Credit: Jeffrey Phelps
MILWAUKEE — St. John’s continues to come up empty in its search for its first signature win. It let another real chance at one get away on Saturday against No. 7 Marquette with another lackluster final stretch.
After blowing all of a 15-point first-half lead, St. John’s still was in a tie game with six minutes to play, but those last six minutes belonged entirely to the Golden Eagles. Marquette scored on eight of its final nine possessions and pulled away for an 86-75 Big East win before a record crowd of 18,095 at Fiserv Forum.
While the Golden Eagles (18-5, 9-3) were converting almost everything, St. John’s (14-10, 6-7) shot 3-for-8 with two turnovers in the last six minutes. The Red Storm have lost six of their last eight games and are 0-5 against nationally ranked teams.
“I don’t have much to say. ‘Disappointment’ would be too little a word,” a clearly irked Rick Pitino said. “We realize our defense is not great, so we’ve been trying to pick up our offense. We did a great job in the first half and the second half our defense was very porous. The second half was just an abysmal performance defensively.”
The Golden Eagles outscored St. John’s 48-28 after halftime, shooting 59.4% from the field, including 8-for-15 on three-pointers. Point guard Tyler Kolek, the 2023 Big East Player of the Year, scored 22 of his 27 points and had seven of his 13 assists in the second half. He shot 11-for-17 and had seven rebounds.
“That was a terrific second half from our entire group,” Marquette coach Shaka Smart said. “You could see the looks on the guys’ faces at halftime that we knew we needed to be tougher. We needed to be stronger and more desperate . . . This is one of the best games that Tyler Kolek has ever played at Marquette. He completely orchestrated everything that we did.”
The Red Storm are 1-5 in Big East road games, and time is growing short for them to make their case to the NCAA Tournament selection committee. They could help themselves on Tuesday when they play at gritty Providence.
Pitino was asked how he thinks his team will respond to the situation and replied, “I don’t care right now. They’re going to respond to me — believe me. You don’t have to worry about that.”
Daniss Jenkins scored 22 points, shot 9-for-19 and had six assists and six rebounds to lead the Red Storm. RJ Luis Jr. added 13 points, shooting 6-for-11, and Nahiem Alleyne had 12 points on four three-pointers.
Stevie Mitchell scored 14 points and David Joplin had 12 for Marquette, which shot 56% for the game and 52% (14-for-27) on three-point attempts.
St. John’s went ahead 45-30 on Jenkins’ three-pointer with 2:33 remaining in the first half.
“St John’s came in here with great desperation. Any time you beat a team by one the last time and they had a shot at the buzzer to win it, they are going to feel some kind of way about that,” Smart said, referring to the Golden Eagles’ 73-72 win at the Garden last month. “They came in here looking like it and playing like it.”
Marquette whittled the margin to nine at halftime and then shot 5-for-8 from three-point range in the first minutes of the second half. The last of those, by Joplin, put the Golden Eagles up 55-54 with 15:16 to play, their first lead since 16-14.
“They came out, shot an open three, shot an open three, shot an open three,” Pitino said. “For no rhyme or reason in the zone, we didn’t pay attention to their personnel. It’s happened before. They did it to us at our place. But when you shoot 56% and 52% from three, I don’t care how good you’re shooting the ball, you’re not going to win . . . Our defense has hurt us most of the season, and tonight it was no different.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
