St. John’s cruise past DePaul in Chicago

The St. John’s Red Storm picked up their tenth win of the season on Wednesday evening, pulling away with an 81-68 over the DePaul Blue Demons at Wintrust Arena.

Vince Cole led the way for the Red Storm with 18 points, his highest output of conference play so far this season. 12 of Cole’s 18 came in the first half, as he and Posh Alexander really set the tone early on for the Red Storm.

Big East leading scorer Julian Champagnie finished with 16 points, a bit below his season average of 19.9 points per game going into Wednesday evening. Posh Alexander rounded out St. John’s big three scoring efforts with 15 points of his own.

DePaul put itself behind the eight ball early in the game, going down by 10 points 10 minutes in and spending the rest of the evening trying, in vain, to claw out of the hole. Charlie Moore led all scorers with 21 points, Pauly Paulicap had 16 points and 16 rebounds, and Javon Freeman-Liberty also had 16 points. Those three players accounted for nearly 78% of DePaul’s scoring, as the rest of the team struggled to get going.

DePaul will return to action Saturday when they face Creighton. St. John’s will be in action Sunday against Marquette.