Big East Basketball: Justin Patton carries Bluejays to victory in Queens

Creighton earned a quality Big East basketball road victory over St. John’s in Queens.

St. John’s came into Wednesday night’s match-up against Creighton on a three game winning streak. They knocked off Syracuse by 33 points at the Carrier Dome, defeated Butler (who knocked off Villanova on Wednesday) at Carnesecca Arena and edged out DePaul in Chicago.

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But the Red Storm came back to reality against the 10th best team in the country.

The Bluejays, who were coming off a loss to the number one team in the country, blitzed the Johnnies from the get-go and the home team had no answers for 7’0″ center Justin Patton in an 85-72 Creighton victory.

Greg McDermott’s team had four players score in double figures, Patton, Marcus Foster (15 points), Maurice Watson Jr. (19 points) and Khyri Thomas (11 points). But no one dominated the game in the fashion that Patton did.

The redshirt sophomore showed off his NBA lottery pick potential, as he scored a career high 25 points on 11-of-14 shooting. Patton showed off his picture perfect shooting touch and form by knocking down a straight away three (his only attempt of the game) and making 2-of-4 free throws.

“Justin’s best basketball is still ahead of him,” McDermott said post game. “He just continues to grow and improve. A lot of it has to do with his work ethic and how he’s understanding the value of competing on a consistent basis.”

While Kassoum Yakwe and Tariq Owens are known as shot blockers, Patton’s footwork, touch, efficiency and length was too much for the Red Storm bigs to handle. He ran the floor like a gazelle and helped the Bluejays dominate the painted area (52 points to St. John’s 24).

Not only did Patton impact the game on offense and in transition, but he grabbed nine rebounds, blocked a shot and challenged numerous others. He made it difficult for Shamorie Ponds (17 points on 6-of-13 shooting), Marcus LoVett (23 points) and Bashir Ahmed (six points on 3-of-13 shooting) to get easy looks around the basket.

“As good as he was offensively in the first half, he was equally good defensively,” McDermott said. “And that wasn’t the case in the first five or six games of the season.”

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Despite Patton’s effort and improvements, Creighton was also terrific in more areas than one.

They shot 52 percent from the field and only turned the ball over eight times. Their transition attack stunned St. John’s from the opening seconds and their surprisingly good defense gave them an 18-point lead at the break.

While the Johnnies did cut the lead down to 10 at numerous points in the second frame, the deficit was just too big to overcome.

Thomas didn’t have a big offensive game for the Bluejays, but he was able to lock down Ponds for the majority of the evening. Patton limited easy looks at the rim and McDermott’s unit had excellent coverage in the pick-and-roll. The Johnnies had to work for every shot, while Creighton was able to get easy looks at the rim and wide open dunks on back door cuts.

Overall, this is a big bounce back win for the Bluejays. Carnesecca Arena was a raucous atmosphere and Creighton could’ve easily let the Villanova loss creep into this game. Instead, they look solid on both ends of the ball and received a breakout performance from their seven-footer.

The name on Creighton’s jersey may not be the same as the Dukes and the Kentuckys and the North Carolinas of the world. But they’re a legit team that has a legit shot of making the Final Four.

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Meanwhile, for St. John’s, Chris Mullin wasn’t exactly pleased with the team’s energy, especially on the defensive end. He said they looked “slow” and their cuts weren’t crisp enough. That will need to be fixed moving forward (they take on Xavier on the road on Saturday), but it’s still promising to see their young team compete in the second half against such a quality opponent.