The Quick and Dirty: St. John's 67, Marquette 51

I wish I had something new to tell you, folks, but tonight's match-up between the surging Red Storm of St. John's and YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles followed a familiar script, as MU fought gamely for 20 minutes before succumbing under a barrage of 3-pointers from D'Angelo Harrison and Rysheed Jordan and getting run out of their own gym, dropping a 67-51 decision to the Johnnies at the Bradley Center.

The teams traded buckets for the first 15 minutes of the game, with neither side leading by more than 3 until Phil Greene IV canned a 3-pointer with 2:44 left in the opening half to give the Johnnies a 29-24 advantage. Luke Fischer, Matt Carlino, and Jajuan Johnson did the heavy lifting for Marquette before halftime, with Fischer tallying 8 points and Carlino and Johnson each chipping in 7. But Carlino made the unforgiveable mistake of criticizing a shitty Big East ref for missing an obvious call, barking at one of the morons after a no-call with 1 second left on the clock, which led to a technical foul and a seven-point cushion for St. John's at the break. Jordan paced the Red Storm with 13 first-half points, thanks largely to a 5-7 showing from the stripe, and Sir'Dom Pointer added 8 while the combustible Harrison was held in check with only 5 points in the first half.

Unfortunately for the home side, a match fell into the Harrison tinderbox at halftime, as the Big East's third-leading scorer erupted for 13 points in the first 10 minutes of the second half. The aforementioned shitty officials made their presence felt after intermission as well, whistling Steve Wojciechowski for a technical foul after the refs missed Fischer getting shoved in the back, but the story was the same one we've seen for the last month-plus: Marquette simply doesn't have the talent or the bodies to match up with the heavies in the Big East. St. John's lead ballooned to 11 when Harrison hit a jumper with 11:11 left, and after Jordan put home a pair of deep 3-pointers with less than 10 minutes to play, it was all over but the cryin'.

The lone bright spot for YOUR Golden Eagles was Steve Taylor, Jr., who played virtually the entire second half and racked up a Rodman-esque 17 rebounds for the game, including 6 on the offensive end. Carlino, as per usual, led the way with 17 points on the strength of five 3-pointers, and Fisch managed 13 points despite a shaky 3-10 performance from the free-throw line, while Duane Wilson shook off an injury to his shoulder in the first half to finish with 8 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals.

Jordan was the BMOC for St. John's with 23 points, Harrison added 21, and Chris Obekpa didn't donkey-punch anybody, so I guess that's good.

Marquette's gruesome record falls to 11-18 and a DePaulian 3-14 in the Big East. St. John's, for its part, improves to 21-9 and 10-7 and continues its quest to get bounced in the first round of the NCAA Tournament again.

Until the merciful end on Saturday, then, this is your post-game dejection thread.