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There was no shot — none — that this was going to be one of those scores that crawled across the bottom of the television screens all day long, raising eyebrows in saloons and living rooms, on iPads and Android phones. 

That wasn’t the way St. John’s approached this season across the first 31 games of this remarkable journey, so it certainly wasn’t going to be dillying and dallying and playing with its food. It was 3-3. Then it was 18-3. It took seven minutes and 13 seconds. 

Red Auerbach would’ve lit his cigar by then. Butler had won its mini version of this Big East Tournament on Wednesday afternoon, when the Bulldogs eliminated Providence and earned the right to be the Johnnies’ sparring partner Thursday. The Bulldogs made a few shots. They made a few runs. They never got close because the Johnnies wouldn’t let them. It ended 78-57. 

“Sometimes a team that plays a game has a little under its belt,” St. John’s coach Rick Pitino said when it was over. “That hurts them in the third game, obviously, but we played good enough to win. We did a lot of good things tonight. We did a lot of things we need to get better at, but overall, it was a four-star performance, and we’ll take it.”