Oso Ighodaro scored 17 points as No. 17 Marquette survived a shaky final few minutes to earn a 73-72 victory over host St. John’s on Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Marquette (13-5, 4-3 Big East) held a 71-58 lead with 6:20 remaining but escaped with its second straight win after conceding a 14-2 run the rest of the way and going scoreless over the final 2:55. St. John’s Dennis Jenkins missed a 3-pointer at the final buzzer.
Ighodaro made 8 of 10 shots as the Golden Eagles shot 75.0 percent (18-of-24) in the second half and 54.2 percent overall. Tyler Kolek added 15 points, 11 assists and six rebounds for the Golden Eagles but the 94-percent foul shooter missed three at the line in the final 2:05 of the game.
Jenkins scored seven straight points for the Red Storm and his 3-pointer cut the deficit to 73-69 with 2:33 left. After Kolek missed two free throws with 2:05 remaining, Joel Soriano hit a layup through traffic late in the shot clock with 95 seconds left and Jenkins split two free throws with 38 seconds left to make it 73-72.
Following a missed free throw by Marquette’s Daivd Joplin with 35 seconds left, Chris Ledlum’s 3-point try clanged off the rim with 10 seconds left for the Red Storm and Kolek missed a free throw. After both teams used their final timeouts, Jenkins saw his 3 from in front of the St. John’s’ bench fall short.
Joplin added 13 points and hit three of Marquette’s six 3s after the Golden Eagles missed their first 12 tries. Stevie Mitchell contributed 12 for the Golden Eagles and Kam Jones finished with 11.
RJ Luis Jr. scored a season-high 20 for the Red Storm (12-7, 4-4), who dropped their third straight. Jenkins added 16 points while Ledlum contributed 13 points and 11 boards and Soriano finished with 11 points and nine rebounds.
St John’s scored 10 straight points and opened a 30-22 lead on a dunk by Zuby Ejiofor off a turnover with 4:42 left before halftime. Ledlum’s putback gave St. John’s its first double-digit lead at 34-24 with 70 seconds left but layups by Mitchell on consecutive trips made it 34-28 by the break.
The Red Storm opened a 48-43 lead on a dunk by Jenkins following a steal by Luis with 16:03 remaining and Marquette roared back to forge a 49-49 deadlock on Mitchell’s hoop less than three minutes later before and Joplin’s 3 capped a 13-2 spurt to make it 71-58.
–Field Level Media