Steven Ashworth overcame a first-half injury scare to score 18 points Tuesday afternoon as host Creighton overcame an early 11-point deficit before withstanding a furious last-minute rally by St. John’s to edge the Red Storm 57-56, in Omaha. Neb.
Ryan Kalkbrenner scored eight of his 16 points during a decisive second-half run for Creighton (9-5, 2-1 Big East), which has won two straight. Kalkbrenner added nine rebounds while Jamiya Neal had six points, nine rebounds and seven assists.
Ashworth had to be helped off the court after St. John’s Zuby Ejiofor landed on his left ankle with 4:50 left in the first half. But Ashworth was back at the under-4 timeout and scored 12 points the rest of the way.
Ejiofor finished with 16 points and eight rebounds for St. John’s (11-3, 2-1), which ended the game on a 10-3 run but missed two chances to win in the final seconds.
Deivon Smith scored 10 points and had the final basket for St. John’s with 36 seconds left. Smith stole the ball from Ashworth with 13 seconds remaining but the Red Storm didn’t use their last time out and RJ Luis Jr. missed a jumper in the paint with three seconds to go.
The ball was tapped back out to Luis, who drove the lane but missed a shot at the buzzer as he made contact with Neal and Creighton forward Jasen Green.
St. John’s also missed a contested putback at the buzzer in a 66-65 loss to Creighton in Omaha on Jan. 13.
The Red Storm finished just 2 of 9 from 3-point land — the second time this season they’ve made only two 3-pointers in a game.
St. John’s opened the game on a 20-10 run before Creighton ended the half on a 16-8 run. The Red Storm scored six of the first 10 points in the second half before the Blue Jays answered with a 24-12 surge in which they took a pair of eight-point leads, the last at 54-46 on a sky hook by Kalkbrenner with 4:31 left.
–Field Level Media
