RJ Luis Jr., Kadary Richmond lead Red Storm to OT victory over Marquette

MILWAUKEE — St. John’s may have opened a path to grabbing a No. 2 seeding for the NCAA Tournament on Saturday with what may rank as their grittiest and best victory of the season.

The sixth-ranked Red Storm scored an 86-84 win over No. 20 Marquette at Fiserv Forum when Kadary Richmond stripped a defensive rebound from the Golden Eagles’ Chase Ross, Simeon Wilcher collected it and found Zuby Ejiofor on the other side of the lane for a short jumper at the buzzer.

“This is probably my favorite win of the season, by far,” Storm coach Rick Pitino said.

RJ Luis Jr. had 28 points including 24 in the second half and overtime and Richmond finished with 10 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists for St. John’s first triple double since Ron Artest had 13 points 12 rebounds and 11 assists against Seton Hall on Jan. 9, 1999.

St. John’s (27-4, 18-2) has won 16 of its last 17 games and will be the top seed in a Big East quarterfinal on Thursday at the Garden. Marquette (22-9, 13-7) will play the same day against Xavier in the 4 vs. 5 quarterfinal matchup.

Wilcher added 13 points for the Storm, who were without Deivon Smith, who is trying to get past the right shoulder injury that has hampered his for almost two months. St. John’s starter Sadiku Ibine Ayo started and was limited be foul trouble and Aaron Scott was the first man off the bench and also ran into foul trouble but it got 16 minutes from Lefteris Liotopoulos, 11 from Ruben Prey and eight from Vince Iwuchukwu.

Kam Jones had 32 points and David Joplin 21 points for Marquette.

St. John’s had a bunch of chances to sew a win up in regulation, but a few small things didn’t go right — twice Aaron Scott stepped on the three-point line making his shots two-pointers the Storm missed five free throws — and it ended up going to overtime tied 75-75.

When Richmond missed the front end of a one-and-one with 1:12 left in regulation and a one-point Storm lead, it opened the door for Marquette to grab a lead on a Jones driving layup. It extended the margin to two when Stevie Mitchell made one of two free throws with 21 seconds left, but Richmond found Luis under the basket for a game-tying layup with 10.7 to force the extra period.