St. John’s fourth quarter sprint dethrones defending champ DePaul
St. John's Quotes DePaul Quotes
By Jack McCarthy
Special to
BigEast.com
CHICAGO — Aliyyah Handford scored 23 points and Danaejah Grant added 22 as St. John’s stunned top-seed and defending champion DePaul 75-66 in a Big East tournament semifinal on Monday on the Blue Demons’ home court.
The fourth seed Red Storm (22-9) will face No. 7 seed Creighton (17-16) in Tuesday’s championship game at McGrath-Phillips Arena.
St. John’s victory was its first in seven tries against a DePaul team that had dominated the league with three straight regular season championships and back-to-back tourney crowns.
The Red Storm rallied from an eight-point fourth quarter deficit, took advantage of four Blue Demon turnovers to close the gap and overtake the hosts and then extended a lead to 60-54 with 3:31 to play.
In the meantime, DePaul went without a field goal for nearly four minutes while St. John’s pushed its advantage to 63-55 with 2:47 to play and as many as 11 points in the final minute.
Aaliyah Lewis scored 14 points, Akina Wellere had 12 while Grant added 10 rebounds for the Red Storm.
Ashton Millender topped the No. 18 Blue Demons (25-8) with 15 points, Chanise Jenkins had 14 while Jacqui Grant and Megan Podkowa added 13 apiece as DePaul saw a nine-game winning streak snapped.
St. John’s rallied from a 14-9 deficit with five consecutive free throws over a final 1:11 to forced a 14-14 tie by the close of the first.
DePaul’s Jenkins broke the game’s seventh tie with a 3-pointer that gave DePaul a 31-28 lead with 2:17 left in the half. Ashton Millender followed with another 50 seconds later and the Blue Demons went on to a 34-28 halftime lead.
DePaul extended the lead to 10 points late in the third quarter but St. John’s closed with six straight points to trim the margin to 45-41 by quarter’s end, including the last buckets on a Handford steal and a Grant layup following a turnover.
St. John’s, which beat Georgetown 65-52 and limited the Hoyas to five fourth quarter points in Sunday’s quarterfinals, reached the Big East semifinals for the third straight year and ninth time in program history.
DePaul advanced out of Sunday’s quarterfinals with a 76-49 victory over ninth-seed Butler.
Tuesday’s nationally televised championship game is scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m. (Central).