One down, three to go.
St. John’s snapped a two-game losing streak with a tougher-than-expected 72-64 victory over DePaul at the Garden Sunday afternoon, the first step in its hopeful march to the NCAA Tournament. Many experts have earmarked 22 wins as the magic number for the Johnnies to be in good position to receive an at-large bid into the field of 68.
It gets harder from here. The Red Storm travel to Milwaukee to face fellow bubble team Marquette next Saturday in their Big East finale, before the conference tournament begins.
D’Angelo Harrison rebounded from a 1-of-11, two-point performance in Tuesday’s loss to Xavier by scoring a game-high 25 points along with 10 rebounds. He had 11 points in the early going, as the Johnnies built an early 22-10 lead.
It was 48-28 with 13:21 remaining, before St. John’s (19-11, 9-8) suddenly fell asleep, DePaul ripping off a 23-7 run to get within 55-51 with 5:56 left.
Chris Obekpa, however, set up Orlando Sanchez for a dunk and after an R.J. Curington’s 3-pointer cut the lead to three, Obekpa pinned Garrett’s layup attempt on the glass. He added another block two possessions later as the Johnnies salted the game away from the free-throw line.
Obekpa had 10 rebounds and six blocks, Sir’Dominic Pointer had 13 points and Orlando Sanchez notched 13 points and seven rebounds. Brandon Young scored 21 points for DePaul (11-19, 3-14) in a losing effort.
St. John’s was without freshman point guard Rysheed Jordan, who sat out the contest after attending the emotional funeral of his aunt, Niaja Kane, on Friday. St. John’s coach Steve Lavin expects the youngster, who was on the bench for the game against DePaul, to practice this week and be ready for Marquette.