History repeated itself for the St. John’s basketball team on New Year’s Eve, but it was not the memory that the Red Storm were looking to relive.
The Johnnies, shortly removed from a game winning buzzer beater on the road against Providence, found itself down by a point, 57-56, with 36.4 seconds left and opted not to foul with a six second differential between the shot clock and the game clock.
It worked to perfection as the Red Storm’s defense forced a turnover and gave St. John’s a chance to steal another road conference game in the final seconds. Not calling a timeout, RJ Luis’ midrange jump shot missed but the offensive rebound was tipped back to him at the 3-point line with 3.4 seconds left.
Instead of taking the open 3-pointer, which no one on the team had made in the game outside of Zuby Ejiofor, Luis drove to the basket and missed a layup through traffic. He absorbed contact through two Creighton defenders before time had expired but there was no foul called as the Bluejays won, 57-56.
It sparked memories from a year ago when Jordan Dingle absorbed contact inside the final two seconds on a jumper off an offensive rebound that would’ve given St. John’s a chance to win the game.
Free throws were at a premium in the game with both teams combining to shoot just 13 attempts, but the two biggest were from Steven Ashworth after Creighton (9-5, 2-1 Big East) secured an offensive rebound with 56.9 seconds.
Ashworth, who left briefly in the first half after suffering what appeared to be a knee injury, had 18 points, five rebounds, and four assists in the game while Ryan Kalkbrenner had 16 points, nine rebounds, and five blocks.
The Red Storm’s (11-3, 2-1 Big East) shooting woes continued, making just 2-of-9 attempts from 3-point range. It was the fewest amount of attempts the team had this season and have only made a total of eight triples in its three Big East games.
St. John’s started quickly, building an 18-7 lead in the opening 10 minutes before its offense started to go cold. Creighton cut its defect to two, 28-26, at halftime before leading for the entire final 13 minutes.
The Red Storm return home to face Butler (7-6, 0-2 Big East) on Saturday (2:00 p.m. ET, FS1).