NEW YORK, NY — The St. John’s Red Storm picked up right where they left off from the regular season, with a dominating 78-57 win over Butler in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament on Thursday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
Big East Player of the Year RJ Luis Jr. had himself quite the afternoon, pouring in 20 points, which led all scorers. Kadary Richmond finished with 15 points, while adding eight rebounds and nine assists to his line, falling just shy of a triple-double.
“I feel like I’m just making the right plays, just going out there playing basketball, having fun freely,” Richmond said. “My guys are making shots.”
Aaron Scott also poured in 15 points with a season-high five steals.
“I told the guys, five-plus [star] performances is a Michael Jordan performance,” St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino said. “We were four stars tonight. Good enough to win.”
Once again, the Red Storm won behind their calling cards all season: suffocating defense and rebounding.
In the first half, St. John’s forced seven turnovers and scored 13 points off of them. The Johnnies out-rebounded the Bulldogs 25-18 and 9-3 on the offensive glass. Over the course of the game, the Red Storm out-rebounded Butler 43-34.
The domination down low extended on the offensive end, too, as the Red Storm outscored Butler 40-14 in the paint
Add three-pointers to the long list of positives for St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino’s club, as the team shot 35% from behind the arc. Coming into the Big East tournament, one of St. John’s weakness was three-point shooting, as they went 29.86% from beyond the arc on the season, which ranked No. 341 in the country.
“We didn’t want this game to be close at all,” Scott said after his side squeaked past Butler in their two previous meetings during the regular season.
Along with three-point attempts, shooting from the free-throw line has been a concern for the Johnnies. They shot 75% from the line in this one, while they averaged just 68.83% from the charity stripe this season. That ranked No. 286 in the NCAA.
St. John’s flew out of the gates in the second half, scoring buckets in five of their first six shot attempts and going on a 12-2 run that lasted 3:46, effectively putting the game to rest.
