The St. John’s express came to a crashing halt Saturday.

Ben Hansbrough scored a career-high 26 points to lead No. 15 Notre Dame to a 76-61 victory over St. John’s in a Big East Conference matchup.

St. John’s had been the surprise of the season thus far in the Big East and entered Saturday’s matchup having won five straight games, including its first three Big East contests.

The Red Storm (10-4, 3-1 Big East) were coming off an emotional win over Georgetown at Madison Square Garden Monday and had ignited talk that the program was back after years of underachieving.

That may be so, but Notre Dame took the opportunity to show it has a pretty good team as well.

Hansbrough hit four 3-pointers and was 6 of 6 from the line for the Irish (14-2, 3-1), who really won this one with defense, limiting the Red Storm to 37.5 percent (21 of 56) from the field.

Justin Brownlee scored 19 points for St. John’s, which won’t have to wait long to try and get revenge against Notre Dame. The Red Storm next face No. 4 Syracuse Wednesday before a rematch with the Irish Sunday.