Al-Amir Dawes tied a career high with 22 points as Seton Hall dominated the second half and pulled away for an 88-66 victory over visiting St. John’s Saturday afternoon in Newark, N.J., to give coach Shaheen Holloway his first Big East victory.
The Pirates (8-7, 1-3) avoided losing their first four conference games for the first time since the 2008-09 season by overcoming an early 10-point deficit to beat St. John’s for the 13th time in the past 18 meetings.
Dawes matched his career best set from Feb. 22, 2020, against Boston College when he was a freshman at Clemson and helped Seton Hall outscore St. John’s by a whopping 75-43 margin over the final 29:43.
The Newark native made 8 of 14 shots and tied a career best with five 3 pointers after shooting 8-of-31 in Seton Hall’s losses to Providence, Xavier and Marquette.
Kadary Richmond added 11 of his 19 in the second half when Seton Hall outscored St. John’s 46-29. Richmond also grabbed nine rebounds and handed out six assists.
Tyrese Samuel added 16 points and nine rebounds while Dre Davis contributed 14 for the Pirates, who shot 62.1 percent in the second half and 54.1 percent overall after missing 11 of their first 13 shots.
Joel Soriano posted his NCAA-best 12th double-double with 23 points and 11 rebounds as St. John’s (11-4, 1-3) lost its third straight. Because of Rafael Pinzon’s illness, David Jones came off the bench and added 12 points as the Red Storm shot 41.2 percent and missed 14 of 18 3-pointers.
Soriano scored 10 early points as St. John’s ripped off a 9-0 run for a 13-6 lead on the center’s dunk with 13:06 left in the first. Jones hit a 3 and converted a layup on consecutive possessions for a 18-8 edge nearly a minute later and the Red Storm held a 23-13 lead after Mathis hit a layup with 9:43 left before it began collapsing.
Seton Hall quickly came back and regained the lead at 33-31 when Dawes hit his fourth 3-pointer with 3:29 remaining and opened a 42-37 lead when Richmond hit a 3 at the horn. The Pirates opened a 54-39 lead on a basket by KC Ndefo with 15:44 remaining and Dawes’ breakaway layup made it 60-44 5 1/2 minutes later.
Davis then finished it off with a dunk that made it 71-50 with 7:04 to play.
–Field Level Media
