NEW YORK _ It was a nice two weeks for St. John's and its fans. The Red Storm closed nonconference play by spanking Syracuse and opened its Big East slate by shocking then-No. 13 Butler and beating DePaul on the road. Dreams of a return to glory _ or at least a run at the NCAA Tournament _ began to form.
No. 10 Creighton played the role of alarm clock on Wednesday night. The Bluejays and 7-footer Justin Patton ended the reverie for now and sent St. John's crashing back to earth with a 85-72 Big East defeat that really wasn't that close.
Patton, a redshirt freshman, was a menace to the Storm scoring a career-high 25 points on 11-for-14 shooting with nine rebounds and four assists; he scored on dunks, an array of low-post moves and even a 3-pointer.
Creighton reminded St. John's, the 4,928 at Carnesecca Arena and a national television audience that the Red Storm is a very inconsistent work-in-progress and the team that somehow lost games to Delaware State and LIU Brooklyn.
In the first half Creighton went on an 18-5 run for a 31-16 lead and closed the half on an 11-2 burst for a 44-26 lead at the break. In the second half, after quickly going down 50-26 St. John's tried to make it interesting. It had the crowd roaring as it scrapped back to within 63-55 on a Marcus LoVett driving layup with 6:17 left. But the Storm got no closer.
Lovett finished with 23 points, Shamorie Ponds had 17 points and Tariq Owens had 12 points, but St. John's (8-8, 2-1) shot just 39 percent from the floor.
Maurice Watson Jr. had 19 points and Marcus Foster 15 for the Bluejays (14-1, 2-1).
