St. John's coughs up lead and loses to Creighton, ending six-game win streak
St John's Kadary Richmond plays defense against Creighton on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2024. Credit: St Johns University
OMAHA, Neb. — Creighton’s home is where the heartbreak is for St. John’s.
For the second straight season, the Bluejays pinned an excruciating one-point loss on the Red Storm. And while the names and players have changed, some of the circumstances of the 57-56 Big East loss before 17,466 at CHI Health Center were eerily familiar. St. John’s allowed Creighton to get a key offensive rebound. There was late contact but no foul call. And, of course, the disappointment.
St. John’s had the game’s final possession and RJ Luis Jr. had two shots to win it. He missed a 16-foot jumper from a step behind the free-throw line with about five seconds left. The ball got tipped back out and he corralled it at the top of the three-point arc. Then he drove into the lane and got off a shot in paint where there appeared to be contact.
No basket. No whistle. Final buzzer.
“He should have taken the wide-open three is what he should have done, not drive into four people,” St. John’s coach Rick Pitino said. “Whether it’s a foul or not is irrelevant.”
Luis turned down a request to take a few questions after the game, saying, “No, I’m good.”
The Red Storm (11-3, 2-1) have not won in Omaha since the 2018-19 season. They saw their six-game winning streak snapped and missed out on a chance to start 3-0 in conference play for the first time since he 2010-11 team did with Dwight Hardy in the starring role.
Zuby Ejiofor had 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting and eight rebounds, but St. John’s shot just 37% for the game and got out-rebounded by seven.
Steven Ashworth had 18 points and Ryan Kalkbrenner added 16 points, nine rebounds and five blocked shots for Creighton (9-5, 2-1), which went 9-for-26 on three-pointers while St. John’s was just 2-for-9.
St. John’s still had a chance to win after its strong defensive play helped it to an 11-point first-half lead and a 20-minute stretch of abysmal shooting allowed the Bluejays to swing it into a 52-44 lead on an Isaac Traudt three-pointer with 6:27 to play.
“I goes back to [scoring] from the three point line, but we’re still right there to win,” Pitino said. “I haven’t seen these type of stats and we’re still right there to win. and that, to me, speaks volumes of what this team is all about . . . We could have won the game. We didn’t. We’re going to lose some games this year [but] we keep fighting like our lives are on the line and that’s all a coach can ask for.”
Over a stretch of 20:27 beginning with 7:54 in the first half, the Storm made just seven of 31 shots as Creighton orchestrated the 19-point swing.
There were many culprits in the poor shooting performance. Deivon Smith, Kadary Richmond, Luis and Simeon Wilcher all took more than 10 shots in the game and went an aggregate 16-for-49 from the floor.
“It was the offense that lost the game,” Pitino said.
Still, St. John’s got the margin to a single point twice.
Smith made a steal and Luis found Ejiofor on the break for a layup to make the score 55-54 with 1:31 to play. The Storm got a stop on the ensuing possession, but Traudt pulled in an offensive rebound and Ashworth ended up getting fouled by Smith; the nation’s top free throw shooter (70-for-71 this season) made both to get the lead back to three.
St. John’s cut it to one again when Ejiofor found Smith in the lane for a layup with 36 seconds left and Pitino called a timeout. He wanted a defensive stop on one end and a shot by Ejiofor when the Storm got the ensuing possession. Smith got a steal for the stop, but the last possession produced the two tries by Luis.
“One of this team’s big weaknesses is . . . when they miss a shot, they deflate,” Pitino said. “It they don’t make shots, it affects their mental state. . . . Last year’s team never worried about that and that’s why, at the end of the year, I thought they were the second-best team in the Big East. We’ve got to get this team to be that way.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
