Butler leads Mountaineers to win over Red Storm

Da'Sean Butler scored a season-high 33 points including a Big East Conference record 7-for-7 from 3-point range to lead Saturday West Virginia to a come-from-behind 79-60 win over St. John's at Madison Square Garden.

The senior forward scored 24 second-half points to erase an 11-point WVU halftime deficit thanks to five 3-pointers. He also ended with seven rebounds and six assists.

It was only the second time in Butler's career he has eclipsed the 30-point mark.

With his free throw to end the first half, Butler passed Greg Jones for fourth on West Virginia's all-time scoring list. The senior now has 1,822 career points and needs 29 points to pass Wil Robinson for third place.

The Mountaineers (19-3, 8-2) shot 62.5 percent (10-for-16) from 3-point range – all but Butler's two 3-pointers coming after halftime – to extend their winning streak to six games.

West Virginia pieced together a 16-0 run early in the second half. Forward Wellington Smith scored the first eight points of the run, including two 3-pointers to cut the St. John's lead to five points.

Consecutive 3-pointers by Butler then gave WVU its first lead since early in the first half, 46-45, with 10:32 left.

Butler added two more 3-pointers while Kevin Jones added another with 6:12 to extend WVU's lead to 10, 64-54.

West Virginia went on to outscore SJU 23-6 to end the game.

St. John's (12-10, 2-10 Big East) held the Mountaineers to their lowest first-half scoring performance of the year as WVU shot just 7-for-28 from the field in the first 20 minutes and headed into the locker room down 33-22 thanks to an 18-2 Red Storm run.

The streak extended the Red Storm's lead to 12 points, 31-19, before Butler hit 2-of-3 free throws at the end of the half.

It was the St. John's bench that proved to be the difference-maker early as the SJU bench outscored the entire WVU team in the first half.

The Red Storm's two leading scorers in the opening half came off the bench in Justin Burrell's 10 points and Justin Brownlee's eight points.

Burrell, who finished tied with Paris Horne with a team-high 12 points, fouled out with five minutes remaining in the game. D.J. Kennedy, who entered as the team's leading scorer averaging 15.6 points per game, finished with just four points on 2-of-11 shooting.

brian.gawthrop@mail.wvu.edu