RJ Luis Jr. collected 20 points to go along with 10 rebounds and converted a tie-breaking dunk with 4:48 remaining as St. John’s survived struggles from the 3-point line to earn a 70-62 victory over visiting Butler on Saturday afternoon at New York.
Luis made 9 of 19 shots despite missing all five of his 3-point tries after shooting 4 of 15 in Tuesday’s one-point loss to Creighton. His fourth dunk of the game snapped a 55-55 tie and started a game-ending 15-7 run.
Zuby Ejiofor scored all his 14 points after halftime as the Red Storm (12-3, 3-1 Big East) shot 36.6 percent overall, scored 40 points in the paint and survived 1-of-21 shooting (4.8 percent) from 3-point range.
Devion Smith added 13 points for St. John’s and Kadary Richmond made a pair of layups in the game-ending run as part of his 11-point showing.
Pierre Brooks scored a game-high 17 points for Butler (7-8, 0-4), which dropped its fifth single-digit game in a seven-game skid. Patrick McCaffery added 13 but Jahmyl Telfort was held to 11, while missing his last four shots, as the Bulldogs shot 39.0 percent and committed 20 turnovers.
After missing 15 of their first 16 shots in the game, Butler made seven straight shots and held the Red Storm without a basket for a little over seven minutes as it hit five layups in a 13-0 run to take an early 17-11 lead on a hoop by Boden Kapke.
St. John’s missed 17 of 18 shots in a span of 8:44 before hitting five straight shots but also went scoreless for the final 2:19 of the first half as Butler held a 29-25 lead at the break.
McCaffery sank a 3-pointer and converted a layup on consecutive trips to push Butler’s lead to 36-29 two minutes into the second half. Ejiofor converted two 3-point plays and scored eight points in a 16-2 run that gave St. John’s a 45-38 lead with 13 1/2 minutes left but McCaffery hit two 3-pointers in an 11-2 run that gave Butler a 49-47 lead with 10:11 left.
The Bulldogs forged a 55-all tie on a dunk by Andre Screen with 5:05 left but Luis easily got to the rim and Richmond hit a layup off a turnover and another out of a timeout to spark the game-ending finish.
