Marquette, Justin Lewis keep St. John's at bay

Justin Lewis scored 28 points and Marquette maintained a late lead at the free-throw line, grinding out an 85-77 victory over St. John’s late Saturday night in Milwaukee.

Dylan Addae-Wusu had 19 points to lead St. John’s (16-14, 8-11 Big East), which will face DePaul on Wednesday in the conference tournament. The Red Storm are the No. 7 seed and the Blue Demons are No. 10.

Julian Champagnie, the No. 2 scorer in the league, had 15 points and five rebounds and Aaron Wheeler had 11 points and five rebounds for the Red Storm. Posh Alexander was scoreless, going 0-for-4, but had nine assists and two steals.

Darryl Morsell had 20 points for Marquette (19-11, 11-8).

The Red Storm had their only lead at 19-18 with 9:57 left in the first half on a three-pointer by Addae-Wusu.

But Lewis rattled nine points in an 11-0 run that gave the Golden Eagles a 29-19 lead with 7:14 left before halftime.

St. John’s trailed 42-35 at the break.

The Storm got the lead down to two points twice in the second half, the last time on a Wheeler layup to make it 48-46 with 17:05 left. But Marquette’s Kur Kuath scored four points in a 7-0 spurt to get it to 55-46 with 16:19 left.

The deficit never dropped below four points from there. Lewis hit a three with 2:02 left to make it 76-67 and the Eagles were 9-for-10 on free throws the rest of the way.