No. 24 Notre Dame 66, St. John’s 40: Jerian Grant scored 21 points and Jack Cooley celebrated his senior night with 12 and 13 rebounds as the Fighting Irish used a big second half to pull away from the visiting Red Storm.

Eric Atkins added 15 points and seven assists for Notre Dame (23-7, 11-6 Big East), which moved a half-game in front of Syracuse and into a tie with Pittsburgh for fourth place in the Big East. The top four teams get a double-bye in the conference tournament.

JaKarr Sampson scored 12 points as St. John’s (16-13, 8-9) suffered a third straight loss. The Red Storm have dropped five of six to rapidly shrink their chances of advancing to the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team.

St. John’s held Cooley scoreless in the first half and limited the Fighting Irish to 27.6 percent shooting overall to take a 26-22 lead into the half.

Things quickly changed course after the break, as Notre Dame used a 23-4 run to turn a two-point deficit into a 51-34 lead with 5:49 left. Atkins and Grant hit back-to-back 3-pointers to stretch it out to 66-38 and the Fighting Irish emptied the bench.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Red Storm F Sir’Dominic Pointer and Notre Dame freshman Cameron Biedscheid were ejected with 1:46 left for fighting. St. John’s G Amir Garrett was also ejected for leaving the bench. … The Red Storm shot 18.5 percent from the field in the second half. … The Fighting Irish finish up the regular season at No. 6 Louisville on Saturday. Notre Dame owns the tiebreaker over Pittsburgh with a head-to-head victory.