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St. John’s shocks No. 10 Marquette
Johnnies bounce back with impressive win against nationally-ranked Big East opponent
BY STEPHEN LEPORE
After getting blown out at Cameron
Indoor Stadium over the weekend,
the St. John’s men’s basketball squad
bounced back in style, returning to its
winning ways with another upset of a
ranked opponent.
The Red Storm knocked off 10thranked
Marquette, 80-79, Tuesday
night in Milwaukee. It was the second
straight Big East road win for the
Johnnies and the first time any team
had beaten the Golden Eagles on their
new home court, the Fiserv Forum. It
was a win that left head coach Chris
Mullin impressed.
“They’re one of the best offensive
teams in the country with three of the
best shooters I’ve seen together on the
team ever,” he said. “I think holding
them to 69 on their own court is pretty
phenomenal defense. The best thing
about tonight was I could tell that
they felt they were playing defense
and could stop them. Deep down they
felt they could stop them. For us, it’s a
great bounce back game.”
It was a game that, for a while,
looked like it might be won by St.
John’s going away. The Red Storm led
by 10 points at the half and built their
lead to 15 in the second half.
However, Marquette launched an
impressive comeback that ended in
back-to-back threes with just over
a minute remaining in regulation.
The Johnnies struck right back on a
huge bucket from Player of the Year
candidate Shamorie Ponds and played
stifling defense down the stretch to
clinch the victory.
Ponds was all over the place as
usual, scoring 28 points on 9-of-19
shooting in addition to a perfect 9-for-
Shamorie Ponds (l.) helped lead St. John’s to victory over Marquette. File photo
9 effort from the free throw line. The
Brooklyn native scored the Red Storm’s
final 10 points and 15 of the team’s last
16 to close the game.
“I mean, coach drew it up and I just
wanted to execute the plays,” he said.
“We wanted to get hot with our pick
and roll.”
The Red Storm swept the season
series over Marquette and end a three
game road trip with two conference
wins and the non-conference loss to
Duke. They’re up to 17-6 on the season
and 5-5 in conference play, good for
third place in the Big East. Mullin sees
the results from the trip as a sign of
toughness.
“We talked about coming out
here and being on our own,” he said.
“Obviously we take it one game at a
time but everyone has the big picture.
I always go back to preparation,
mentally and physically, and being
resilient. Whatever happened,
happened and we have to learn from
it and move on. Our four veteran guys
understand that and they are leading
the way for the guys that need help.
They ended up being the guys that
made all the plays tonight.”
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