Many people thought that the Big East Player of the Year race was over and Marquette guard Kam Jones was shoo-in for the award, but St. John’s basketball wing RJ Luis hasn’t heard a final buzzer yet.
Luis might have taken the lead in the race after a scintillating week that saw the No. 12 Johnnies defeat No. 11 Marquette and No. 19 UConn in the span of four days which he was at the forefront of.
“There’s no better scorer, I think, in the Big East than RJ,” Rick Pitino said after Luis his junior guard delivered the game-clinching basket with 10.1 seconds remaining against the Huskies.
He’s averaging 19.4 points per game in St. John’s ten game winning streak and 18.2 points per contest in league games while shooting 43.3-percent from the field yet not being a major threat from 3-point range.
The offensive numbers are better than Jones (17.7 points) and slightly below Creighton standout center Ryan Kalkbrenner (20.8 points).
But Luis doesn’t just do it on the offensive end, his defense has been the most impressive part of his season and a major reason why the Red Storm have the No. 2 defense in the country as rated by KenPom.
RJ Luis’ defensive rating (91.0), according to Sports Reference, is better than Kalkbrenner’s (94.9), a three-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year, and far superior to Jones’ (100.8).
When needed in the most critical points of the game Luis draws the assignment of the opposition’s best player and neutralizes them, like he did with Kam Jones in the final five minutes of the St. John’s win over Marquette and against UConn’s Solo Ball in the second half.
St. John’s has not had a player win the Big East Player of the Year since the 1985-86 season when Walter Berry won the program’s fourth in a row, although Chris Mullin shared the award with Patrick Ewing in 1983-84 and ’84-85, and there has not been a better opportunity than now to break that streak.
RJ Luis is the best player on the best team in the conference and will remain in the hunt to bring the Big East’s most illustrious award back to Queens.