Gardner’s Career Day Gives #24 Marquette Easy Win over St. John’s

This game was only a 1-point game at the break, but an explosive second half and a 22 points 15 rebound effort from Davante Gardner helped #24 Marquette pull away from the St. John’s Red Storm, 83-64.

Gardner exceled in the first half, throwing up 14 of his 22 points and he cleared the path for Darius Johnson-Odom, who scored 18 of his 20 points after the intermission for Marquette (13-4, 2-2 Big East).

The Red Storm of St. John’s (8-8, 2-3 Big East) were led by God’sgift Achiuwa with 20 points and he was followed by a 17 point night for Moe Harkless. St. John’s hasn’t had a very favorable schedule as of late, facing a top 25 opponent in three of their last four games (0-3 against those teams).

After trailing 32-31 at the break, the Golden Eagles exploded for a 15-6 run to open the half. The run was sparked by Johnson-Odom’s 7 points and Jae Crowder’s 4 points. At the 13:05 mark, Harkless sank two free throws to pull St. John’s within 5, but that was the closest that they were able to get for the remainder of the game.

The Red Storm were playing well in the first half, matching Marquette every step of the way. The key difference in this game was second half shooting. Marquette connected on 67.7% of their second half shots, while St. John’s only shot 38.5% after the break.

A stretch of difficult games will continue for St. John’s, as they host #11 Georgetown on Sunday, January 15^th at 12:00 pm. Marquette has another home game on Saturday, this time against a struggling Pittsburgh team that has yet to record a conference win (0-4). Tip off for that contest is at 2:00 pm.