The St. John’s basketball team has completed the sweep of the Big East. It won the outright regular season title three weeks ago and now it has the Big East Tournament too.
It’s the first conference championship for the Red Storm since 2000 and accomplished the feat just how this squad would – a comeback effort built on its defense and a knockout run in the second half.
The Johnnies outscored Creighton 27-11 over a 5:14 stretch midway in the second half that led to its 82-66 victory and made 14 straight field goals and 17-of-19 to close the game.
"They were just brilliant," Rick Pitino said.
Its stars were all in on the burst that made Madison Square Garden shake, including 29 points and 10 rebounds from RJ Luis, the Big East Player of the Year and the Most Outstanding Player of the Big East Tournament, after he was just 4-for-18 in the semifinals on Friday night.
He had just two points at halftime before his second half explosion.
"There's not many second chances in life, so when the opportunity presents itself, you've got to grab it by the neck," Luis said. "Coach P is the mastermind behind all of this. I mean, it's truly special."
St. John’s (30-4) used a 11-3 run to take a 49-44 lead with 10:10 remaining in the game. It was started on an old school 3-point play by Zuby Ejiofor, who had 20 points in an encore showing from his 33-point outing, in addition to buckets from Vince Iwuchukwu, Kadary Richmond, Deivon Smith, and Luis.
Smith thought he was fouled on his shot attempt; it wasn’t called but still went it.
However, Creighton (24-10) responded with four straight points and missed a chance to tie the game on an and-one from Jamiya Neal, but a missed free throw gave the Red Storm the momentum.
Luis drilled a 3-pointer, and despite being hit with a technical for celebrating, St. John’s kept its stride with a 9-2 run.
It started ugly for the Red Storm, missing its first six shots from the field and digging an early hole very similar to the night prior against Marquette after Creighton started 7-of-8 from the field, but St. John’s would try to slowly climb out of it.
The Johnnie defense finally settled into the game and forced the Bluejays to miss fourteen of its next sixteen shots. The closest it got was within a point before trailing by three, 28-25, at halftime.
St. John’s will wait its NCAA Tournament seeding on Sunday evening (6:00 p.m. ET, CBS).