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The St. John's women's basketball team continued to make their way up the Big East standings over this past week, as they squeaked out a tough win against Villanova on Friday night before rolling Georgetown on Sunday.
The pair of wins now has the Red Storm at 19-8 on the season, and their 10-6 conference record has them tied for third place in the conference, as they are in a three-way tie for that spot along with Butler and Villanova.
In the big victory over Villanova on Friday night, the two teams played closely together throughout, with the Wildcats taking a one-point lead into halftime. However the Red Storm would be able to pull away in the second half as they were able to squeak out a 56-51 win.
Aliyyah Handford scored 25 of the Red Storm's 56 points on the night, and she was also able to knock down 11 of her 16 shots from the field. Handford also would tie Amber Thompson for the team lead in rebounding with eight boards. Jade Walker and Aaliyah Lewis would also add 10 points on the night as well.
Sunday's contest against the lowly Georgetown Hoyas was not nearly as close, however. Handford would score 27 to lead the Red Storm on the afternoon, while Danaejah Grant would be right behind her with 26 points of her own.
Those two would really be all that the Red Storm would need on the afternoon as they jumped out to a 17-point, 41-24 halftime lead, and would continue to roll to a 75-61 victory over a Georgetown team which has just four wins on the season.
It appears as though the Big East will be only a two-bid league for the NCAA Tournament this season, and it looks as though those two bids will be grabbed by DePaul and Seton Hall.
However the Red Storm will have a chance to put themselves in a better position for next month's Big East Tournament in their final two games of the season, tomorrow night at Butler and Sunday at Xavier.
Handford Earns a Pair of Honors
Along with being named to her ninth Big East Honor Roll of the season after she averaged 26 points per game over the past week, Aliyyah Handford also was named as the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association Player of the Week on Tuesday afternoon. This was the second time that she has earned the honor on the season, with the first coming back in December.