No. 20 Creighton 63, St. John’s 60: Doug McDermott scored a season-high 39 points – including the go-ahead 3-pointer with 2.8 seconds remaining – as the Bluejays won their 14th straight home game and moved back atop the Big East.

McDermott went 15-of-26 from the field, including 5-of-9 beyond the arc, and 4-of-5 from the foul line for Creighton (18-3, 8-1 Big East), which regained a half-game lead over No. 9 Villanova in the conference and will have nine full days off before it hosts DePaul on Feb. 7. No other Bluejay scored more than seven points, although guard Avery Dingman collected a career-high nine rebounds.

D'Angelo Harrison scored 13 of his team-high 15 points in the second half for St. John’s (12-9, 2-6 Big East), which fought its way out of an 18-point second-half hole to knot it twice in the final minutes. Chris Obekpa and Rysheed Jordan each had 11 points while JaKarr Sampson chipped in with 10 points for the Red Storm, who saw their three-game winning streak snapped.

McDermott scored 20 of his team’s 29 points in the opening stanza, going 7-of-11 from the floor while St. John’s held the rest of his teammates to 3-of-10 shooting. The Red Storm trailed by nine with about five minutes left before intermission after the last of McDermott’s three first-half 3-pointers, but outscored Creighton 7-2 over the remainder of the half to trail by four at the break.

Sampson trimmed the deficit to two early in the second half before McDermott scored the next eight points during a 17-1 burst to help the Bluejays build a 46-28 advantage. The Red Storm, who missed 10 straight shots after Sampson’s bucket, hit 11 of their next 16 and scored 28 of the next 38 points to tie it at 58 with 1:34 left before McDermott broke the Red Storm’s hearts with a jumper after each one of St. John’s timeouts.

GAME NOTEBOOK: McDermott passed Lehigh’s Daren Queenan (2,703), Northeastern’s Reggie Lewis (2,709) and Loyola Marymount’s Hank Gathers (2,723) to move into sole possession of 18th place on the Division I all-time scoring list with 2,741 career points. … St. John’s, which has dropped nine straight against ranked foes, went 1-of-10 beyond the arc Tuesday – the fourth time it has hit one or less in a game. … Creighton has yet to trail in a home game.