St. John’s Holds on for 2nd Half Win

The Blue Demons fought back from a 17 point deficit with 7:36 remaining against St. John’s at Allstate Arena on Saturday, to only have their comeback fall short and lose 71-62.

DePaul (10-8, 1-4) came to within three points on Moses Morgan’s trifecta with 2:24 left, but St. John’s (11-7, 3-3) closed the game out on a 6-0 run by making their free throws when it mattered.

“DePaul continues to fight, scratch, and claw, they are going to go on runs,” said Red Storm coach Steve Lavin. “I knew they were going to make a run at us. DePaul continued to fight, they were opportunistic, they got some steals, some turnovers, some stops and made some big shots.”

It was a sloppy affair with both teams turning the ball over 18 times.

“Our turnovers really hurt us throughout the game,” said DePaul coach Oliver Purnell. “On a couple of opportunities, we had them cough it up to us, only to give it right back to them. 34% of their scores came just from our turnovers.”

The Blue Demons shot five of 25 from behind the arc today which was not what Purnell wanted.

“The other glaring area was our three point shooting,” said Purnell. “I thought that we took far too many of them and obviously didn’t get enough. We needed to go inside more and get fouled.”

DePaul point guard Brandon Young turned in a subpar performance today. Young turned the ball over seven times to three assists. Brandon finished with just six points on just two of 11 shooting from the field and went zero for five from beyond the arc. Young did manage to corral 10 rebounds for a career high.

Sophomore Jamee Crockett led all scorers with 19 points including back-to-back three pointers down the stretch. Junior forward Cleveland Melvin scored 16 and grabbed eight rebounds.

St. John’s had four players finish in double-figures. Jamal Branch led the way for the Red Storm with18 points. D’Angelo Harrison scored 15 points. While Sir’Dominic Pointer contributed with 14 points and Jakarr Sampson added 10.

DePaul now has a week off before travelling to Pittsburgh next Saturday. They also have a rematch with St. John’s looming on the 30th.

Box Score

Notes:

- Stevenson High School sophomore point guard Jalen Brunson attended today's game. After the game, Brunson picked up a scholarship offer from DePaul coach Oliver Purnell. Brunson also has offers from Illinois, Purdue, SMU and Xavier. Brunson is the son of former Temple star Rick Brunson.

- Former Blue Demons Stanley Brundy and Terence Greene are being inducted into the DePaul Hall of Fame again this weekend.

- St. John’s leads the all-time series by a 16-14 margin... the Red Storm has won seven straight games in the series.

- A three-pointer by Moses Morgan in the first half extended DePaul’s streak to 597 straight games with a three.

- Brandon Young set a new career high in rebounds with 10 boards... previous career best was six rebounds on four occasions.

- Cleveland Melvin moved into 24th place on DePaul’s all-time scoring list... he entered the game needing six points to pass Joey Meyer (1968-71, 1,233 pts.).