Once again, the Marquette Golden Eagles gave their opponent all it could handle on the road, but came up short for the second straight game. Marquette was dropped by the St. John’s Red Storm 60-57 at Madison Square Garden Wednesday night.
Marquette (10-8, 2-4) led for 7:11 during the second half thanks to an 8-0 run to catapult the team to a three point lead. Graduate student Matt Carlino carried his team during the run, hitting four consecutive 3-pointers in a three and a half minute span to help Marquette go ahead. The Golden Eagles extended the margin to as many as five points during the span, but St. John’s (13-5, 2-4) refused to go away.
The teams traded baskets in the waning minutes of the second half and Marquette maintained the advantage with under three minutes to go until a pair of baskets by Sir’Dominic Pointer put the Red Storm back in the lead for good.
Carlino led the Golden Eagles in scoring with 21 points on 6-of-13 shooting. Steve Taylor Jr. had an impressive performance with 13 points and six rebounds off the bench. Luke Fischer scored eight points on an uncharacteristic 2-of-8 from the floor. Four players finished in double figures for St. John’s; Rysheed Jordan and Pointer each scored 15 and D’Angelo Harrison and Phil Greene IV scored 11 points.
St. John’s shot-blocking tandem of Chris Obekpa and Pointer had a major impact on Marquette’s offense. The Red Storm swatted 11 Marquette shot attempts, Pointer and Obekpa combined for nine of them. The Golden Eagles finished the night shooting 33.9 percent from the floor.
Both teams were offensively challenged in the first 20 minutes and St. John’s took a 26-24 lead into the halftime locker room. Marquette went 8-of-26 (30.8 percent) from the field, while St. John’s shot 9-of-32 (28.1 percent) from the floor. The Golden Eagles also committed nine turnovers in the half.
Marquette failed to take advantage of St. John’s rebounding deficiencies, getting beaten 38-35 on the glass. Marquette pulled down 13 offensive rebounds against the league’s worst defensive rebounding team, but allowed St. John’s to grab 15 offensive boards.
The Golden Eagles remain winless in true road games as they fell to 0-5 in opposing gyms. Marquette will try to get back on track as the team returns home for an important matchup against the Georgetown Hoyas Saturday afternoon. Georgetown enters the BMO Harris Bradley Center coming off a 20-point home victory against conference favorite Villanova.
