St. John’s Falls on the Road to Xavier

Wednesday, January 31

Cincinnati, Ohio (Cintas Center)

6:30 p.m.

St. John's University

13-8,5-5Big East

Xavier

11-10,5-5Big East

St. John's (NY)

Xavier

1/31/2024 9:55:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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Daniss Jenkins and Joel Soriano combined for 46 points in Wednesday’s 88-77 setback at Cintas Center

CINCINNATI, Ohio – The St. John's men's basketball team (13-8, 5-5) rallied back from an 11-point second half deficit to tie the game with under four minutes to play, but Xavier managed to pull away by scoring the final eight points of the contest to earn an 88-77 victory at Cintas Center. Graduate students Daniss Jenkins and Joel Soriano led the Red Storm's hard-fought effort, combining for 46 points in its BIG EAST road setback on Wednesday.

Jenkins registered a season-high 25 points, shooting 11-for-17 from the field. The 6-foot-4 guard from Dallas also knocked down a pair of 3-pointers while adding four boards and two assists.

Soriano recorded his BIG EAST-leading 11^th double-double and tallied his eighth 20-point performance of the season. The 6-foot-11 center posted 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting and matched his season-high with 15 boards. The Red Storm big man also added four blocks in 34 minutes of action.

Jordan Dingle recorded eight of his 12 points at the free-throw line. Red Storm teammate Nahiem Alleyne returned to action after missing the previous game with an ankle injury and played 11 minutes off the bench. Forward Chris Ledlum also posted five of the team's 11 blocks on Wednesday, setting a new career high.

Xavier (11-10, 5-5) was led by Desmond Claude and Quincy Olivari, who scored 23 points apiece. The Musketeers capitalized on 28 fastbreak points and shot 27-for-32 (84.4 pct) from the free-throw line.

Jenkins hit his first five shot attempts and had 15 points by intermission to keep the Red Storm within four at the break. Soriano pulled down 10 of the team's 21 rebounds in the first half while Dingle gave the Johnnies a boost off the bench with seven points in the opening frame.

After falling behind by eight at the 8:42 mark, Soriano got going offensively and scored all seven of his first half points in the final eight minutes. Alleyne buried an elbow jumper with 17 seconds on the clock to make it a 38-34 ballgame at the break.

In the second half, the Musketeers managed to open a 58-47 lead at the 13:10 mark on a breakaway dunk by Dailyn Swain at 13:10. The Johnnies quickly answered with a 13-4 run coming out a timeout to trim its deficit to two just over four minutes later. Soriano scored six points during the run, while Jenkins finished the surge pickpocketing Trey Green in the backcourt and completed a three-point play to make it 62-60.

St. John's eventually knotted the game at 73 with just under four minutes to play after a Jenkins jumper capped off a 6-0 spurt. However, that was as close as St. John's would get as Xavier closed the game on a 13-2 run led by Oliveri. The graduate student from Rice buried two 3-pointers in the final two minutes of action to put the game out of reach.

Xavier's Dayvion McKnight added 19 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the floor and 6-for-7 from the charity stripe. Claude had 16 of his 23 points in the second half.

The Johnnies will return to action on Saturday at Madison Square Garden taking on No. 1/1 Connecticut. FOX will carry the national telecast with tip-off slated for noon.