St. John’s Takes Down Georgetown, 86-78, at MSG

Saturday, March 9

New York, N.Y. (Madison Square Garden)

12 p.m.

St. John's University

19-12,11-9Big East

Georgetown

9-22,2-18Big East

Georgetown

St. John's (NY)

3/9/2024 4:14:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)Play-by-Play (PDF)Photo Gallery Postgame Quotes VIDEO: Postgame Press Conference VIDEO: Postgame Highlights Photo Gallery

Daniss Jenkins scored a game-high 23 points to help lead the Red Storm to its fifth-straight win

NEW YORK – The St. John's men's basketball team earned its fifth consecutive victory by taking down Georgetown (9-22, 2-18), 86-78, on Saturday at Madison Square Garden.

With the win, the Johnnies finish in fifth place in the league standings. St. John's (19-12, 11-9) 11 conference wins are the most for the program since posting 12 BIG EAST wins in 2010-11.

Daniss Jenkins paced the Red Storm with 23 points, shooting 7-for-11 from the field and 8-for-9 at the free-throw line. The 6-foot-4 point guard dished out seven assists, made two steals and blocked two shots.

St. John's wing RJ Luis Jr. scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half and helped calm a late Georgetown rally. Luis shot 6-for-8 from the field and made three steals in 22 minutes off the bench. Red Storm forward Chris Ledlum also logged a double-digit scoring effort, finishing 14 points and made all six free-throw attempts.

Jenkins surged out of the gate scoring the team's first eight points before Joel Soriano's bucket on the interior gave St. John's a 10-0 lead by the first media timeout. The Dallas native hit his first four shots and had 11 of the team's first 15 points, which included a 3-pointer and a pair of three-point plays.

After the Johnnies built a nine-point advantage on two free-throws from Luis at 12:08, the Hoyas answered with a 14-4 run to take its first lead of the game. Dontrez Styles capped the spurt with a bucket in transition to put Georgetown on top 22-21 with 8:09 on the clock.

From there, neither team led by more than four points for the remainder of the first half that featured six more lead changes. Nahiem Alleyne sent St. John's into the locker room with a 39-35 advantage with a deep 3-pointer at the buzzer. Alleyne finished with eight points, shooting 3-for-4 from the field with a pair of threes.

In the second half, the Johnnies jumped out to a 44-37 advantage less than two minutes into the stanza after Ledlum buried a triple and Jenkins converted a layup. The Hoyas got within one point of the Red Storm on three more occasions, beginning with back-to-back threes from Drew Fielder to make it 52-51 at 13:12, but Georgetown was unable to recapture a lead the rest of the way.

Luis answered with a layup that sparked a stretch were St. John's hit 12 of its next 14 shots. Following consecutive jumpers in the paint from Jenkins, Luis made a steal at midcourt and went in for a two-handed slam to rebuild the Red Storm's advantage to seven with under five minutes to play.

Less than a minute later, Soriano gave the Johnnies a spark on the defensive end with a pair of blocks on Supreme Cook, which led to Ledlum's three-point play that put St. John's up 10 with 3:39 to go. Soriano finished with five blocks, 10 rebounds and nine points in 31 minutes of action.

Georgetown knocked down four 3-pointers in the final three minutes of action, but St. John's answered with clutch buckets from Luis and Ledlum before hitting all six of its free-throws attempts to seal the win.

The Red Storm will enter the 2024 BIG EAST Tournament as the No. 5 seed and will face No. 4 Seton Hall on Thursday in a quarterfinal matchup at 2:30 p.m. inside Madison Square Garden.