The ability to hit a big shot left St. John’s feeling exhilarated as well as exhausted following a double-overtime win on the road Tuesday night.
Creighton was just left with the what-ifs the same night after the Bluejays couldn’t drain the difference-making basket in their own double-overtime road battle.
After three much-needed days off, the Big East foes will return to the court Saturday night, when No. 18 Creighton is slated to visit St. John’s in New York.
Creighton’s eight-game winning streak ended Tuesday night, when the Bluejays fell to No. 24 Providence, 94-86. St. John’s earned its second straight win in marathon fashion by outlasting DePaul, 92-83.
The loss snapped the longest conference winning streak for Creighton (17-9, 11-4 Big East) since it joined the Big East for the 2013-14 season, and it dropped the Bluejays into a three-way tie for second place in the league with Providence and Xavier. The trio are 1 1/2 games behind Marquette.
“Ed and I might be getting too old for too many more of these,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said with a grin, referring to Providence head coach Ed Cooley. “It was a great basketball game. If you didn’t care who won it, it had to be a lot of fun to watch.”
Creighton had chances at the end of regulation and overtime to extend its winning streak, the longest in league play since the Bluejays won 11 straight Missouri Valley Conference games from Dec. 31, 2011 through Feb. 1, 2012.
But Baylor Scheierman missed a 3-pointer with 45 seconds left in regulation before Arthur Kaluma missed a jumper just before the buzzer. Ryan Nembhard missed a shot with one second left in the first overtime.
Exhaustion seemed to set in during the second overtime for Creighton, whose five starters all played at least 45 minutes. Providence scored the first eight points of the second extra session while the Bluejays went 0-for-7 from the field and collected their only points on a pair of free throws by Kaluma with 15 seconds left.
“Disappointed that we had it at the end of regulation and at the end of the first overtime, couldn’t find a way to get a basket or get us to the free-throw line,” McDermott said.
St. John’s (16-11, 6-10 Big East) appeared headed for defeat when it trailed DePaul 69-56 with under seven minutes left. But guard Dylan Addae-Wusu scored 11 of his game-high 24 points over the final 4:18 of regulation, including the game-tying 3-pointer just before the buzzer.
Addae-Wusu had three points in the first overtime, including the free throw with 1:01 left that knotted the score at 83-83, and drained the 3-pointer with 1:40 remaining in the second overtime that gave St. John’s its final field goal and extended the Red Storm’s lead to 88-83.
Addae-Wusu finished with 11 rebounds for the second double-double of his career.
“I call him our kamikaze guy, our glue guy that does a lot of different things,” St. John’s coach Mike Anderson said. “But tonight he really was outstanding on the offensive end and organizing, getting assists to guys. He just made some big plays — big shots, big free throws.”
The double-overtime game was the first for St. John’s since a 75-68 win over Butler on Feb. 28, 2018.
“I always talk about playing 40 minutes. I guess tonight it was 50 minutes,” Anderson said. “Our guys, they just wouldn’t quit.”
–Field Level Media
