After spending most of the last two seasons bottoming out, Georgetown and beleaguered program icon Patrick Ewing finally experienced some happiness in a Big East game Tuesday night.
St. John's, meanwhile, can only hope that Wednesday night marked the low point of its season and coach Mike Anderson's tenure.
Longtime rivals mired in the lower half of the Big East meet for the first time this season Sunday when St. John's (13-8, 3-7) hosts Georgetown (6-15, 1-9) at Madison Square Garden in New York.
With an 81-71 defeat of visiting DePaul on Tuesday, the Hoyas halted a 29-game conference losing streak dating back to March 2021 -- the longest skid in Big East history.
Primo Spears, who leads Georgetown with 16.8 points and 5.5 assists per game, sparked the much-needed win by scoring 21 points and finishing with six assists against the Blue Demons.
"Finally, we got one," said Ewing, who won the 1984 national championship with Georgetown. "My team worked extremely hard. I've won pretty much everywhere that I've been, so losing is not something that I'm familiar with."
St. John's saw its postseason hopes take another damaging blow in Wednesday's 104-76 rout by Creighton.
While Anderson appears headed for his 21st consecutive winning season as a head coach, the defensive struggles for the Red Storm are hard to ignore.
St. John's, which hadn't allowed 100 points in a game since March 2017, entered Saturday ranked 10th in the Big East in scoring defense (79.2 points per game) and seventh in defensive efficiency, per KenPom.com.
Creighton shot 56.7 percent, including a blistering 73 percent (27-of-37) on shots inside the 3-point line.
"I thought our defense was the worst we've played all year," Anderson said. "We lacked the physicality, toughness and grit that you have to play with and we let them coax their way into the lane, which led to more opportunities. We were indecisive."
AJ Storr scored a game-high 23 points against the Bluejays. Joel Soriano, who leads the Red Storm with 16.5 points and 12.1 rebounds per game, added 18 points and nine boards.
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