The Red Storm Men’s Basketball team suffered a 96-85 setback against Marquette (12-4, 4-1) on Tuesday at Carnesecca Arena.
St. John’s senior center Joel Soriano registered his 13th double-double of the season, finishing with 22 points and 13 rebounds. He shot 10-for-17 from the field and hit both of his free-throw attempts. Junior guard Dylan Addae-Wusu recorded a career-high 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting and sank three 3-pointers after earning his second consecutive start for St. John’s (11-5, 1-4). Addae-Wusu also dished out five assists, grabbed three rebounds and made two steals.
The Golden Eagles were led by junior Olivier-Maxence Prosper who finished with 29 points, shooting 9-for-13 from the field. The 6-foot-8 forward hit 4-of-5 attempts from distance and went 7-for-8 from the free-throw line.
The Johnnies were clicking early in the first half, hitting 10 of their first 13 shot attempts. Soriano scored eight of the team’s first 14 points before junior guard Posh Alexander buried a pair of 3-pointers off the bench to push St. John’s out to its largest lead of the game, 24-15, at 12:26.
Marquette answered with a 7-0 stretch to get within two points 68 seconds later. Tyler Kolek converted a three-point play before back-to-back buckets by Stevie Mitchell and Ben Gold made it a 24-22 ballgame with 11:18 on the clock.
Soriano sank his first seven shot attempts and pushed the Johnnies out to a 40-35 advantage with a jumper at 4:11. Addae-Wusu capped the 7-0 run by knocking down a triple with three and a half minutes to go in the stanza.
St. John’s carried a 48-41 advantage into halftime after shooting 65.6 percent (21-32 FG) from the field. Soriano had 16 points while Alexander had 10 of his 11 points before the break.
Marquette opened the second half with a 15-2 spurt, claiming a 57-50 lead less than five minutes into the period. The Golden Eagles went up by 11 with 10:09 on the clock and did not trail the rest of the way.
The Johnnies managed to chip away at the double-digit deficit, cutting it to four, 83-79, at 3:14 after consecutive buckets by David Jones. However, Marquette scored seven of the game’s next eight points to secure the win. Jones recorded 11 of his 13 points in the final 20 minutes of action.
Prosper posted 25 of his game-high 29 points in the final stanza. As a team, Marquette shot 57.1 percent (16-28 FG) from the floor, including 7-for-12 from 3-point range in the second half.
St. John’s hits the road for two of its next three games, beginning with a matchup at Providence on Saturday at 12 p.m. FS1 will carry the national telecast live from Amica Mutual Pavilion.
For more information on the St. John’s Athletics Department fans are encouraged to click on the link seen here:
St. John’s University Athletics – Official Athletics Website (redstormsports.com)