Zuby Ejiofor celebrates with Sadiku Ibine Ayo (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Unsurprisingly, the quote that reverberated around social media following UConn’s comfortable victory over Georgetown in the Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament semifinals on Friday night came from head coach Dan Hurley. He was asked to share his thoughts on an impending matchup with top-seeded St. John’s, an opponent with whom the Huskies split their regular season contests, and Hurley provided another trademark quip.
“It’s going to be a death match for the Big East championship,” Hurley said. “Both of us have really delivered for this league in a year where this league needs a game like tomorrow night.”
But once the ball was tipped in the conference tournament title game before a raucous crowd at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, only one team delivered the way it had all season: St. John’s. Led by head coach Rick Pitino, the top-seeded Red Storm brutalized second-seeded UConn for the better part of 40 minutes in a physically dominant showing that ended as a wire-to-wire 72-52 thumping for the Big East Tournament victory. A double-digit halftime lead for St. John’s never shrunk below seven, even amid a brief Huskies’ surge, and quickly ballooned north of 20 in the closing stages.
The Red Storm have now won the men’s Big East Tournament title in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1985-86.
Here are my takeaways:
1. St. John’s controls the Big East despite UConn’s national titles
When push comes to shove, the Huskies will gladly point to their two national championships during Hurley’s tenure as worthwhile trade-offs for some disappointing results in the conference. Back-to-back triumphs on the sport’s biggest stage in 2023 and 2024 gave UConn six national titles in program history, tied with North Carolina for third all-time behind UCLA (11) and Kentucky (8).
What’s also unquestionable, though, is the dominance St. John’s has summoned on a conference level during this remarkable three-year run under Pitino, who continues to do what he’s always done across a highly decorated career: win. As far as the Big East goes, the Red Storm have now secured back-to-back regular season titles and back-to-back conference tournament titles while only dropping four league games over those two campaigns combined. An 18-2 regular season during the 2024-25 season gave way to an identical 18-2 regular season mark this year, both of which ended with clean sweeps at Madison Square Garden in March.
In assembling rosters flush with positional size, unwavering toughness and years upon years of collegiate experience, Pitino has found an ideal elixir for success in the ruggedly officiated Big East. And he’s now presiding over a level of conference dominance that even the Huskies couldn’t match while winning those two national titles under Hurley. Sure, the UConn team from 2023-24 proved itself a legitimate juggernaut by winning 28 regular season games and blowing out six consecutive opponents in the NCAA Tournament. But Hurley’s two championship-winning teams also dropped nine combined Big East games during their reign.
The next step for Pitino during his reconstruction of St. John’s is to parlay such incredible regular season success into a lengthy NCAA Tournament run. Last year’s team, a 2-seed, stumbled in the second round against 10th-seeded Arkansas on a night when poor perimeter shooting finally undid the Red Storm. The program still hasn’t reached the Sweet 16 since 1999.
2. Ferocious St. John’s defense smothers high-powered UConn offense
When Red Storm center Zuby Ejiofor, the freshly crowned Big East Player of the Year, scored on a half-hook midway through the second half, he made a gesture to suggest that UConn big man Tarris Reed Jr. was too small to defend him on the way back down the floor, holding one hand a few inches above the hardwood. And while it was an offensive basket that prompted Ejiofor to unfurl his momentary taunt, the wide-ranging nature of his impact on Saturday’s game meant it could have applied to both ends of the floor.
For the better part of 40 minutes, Ejiofor had gone chest to chest with Reed in what was arguably the conference’s most intriguing matchup all season. He scored 18 points while making seven of his 11 shots in a highly efficient offensive performance, but it’s what Ejiofor did on defense that spearheaded the Red Storm’s thorough blanketing of UConn, a team with an offense that ranked 26th nationally in efficiency at tip-off. Ejiofor, who also grabbed nine rebounds, set a Big East Tournament title game record with seven blocked shots to repeatedly dissuade, deter and deject nearly every Husky who entered the paint.
[NCAA TOURNAMENT: 2026 Men’s Automatic Bids Tracker]
Such an imposing presence across the basket allowed the Crimson Storm’s different defenders to play feisty, handsy protection in all areas of the court docket. Pitino’s group compelled UConn into 17 turnovers, 10 of which St. John’s ripped away as steals, and reworked these errors into 24 factors. 5 totally different gamers tallied at the very least one steal, together with two gamers — Ejiofor and level guard Dylan Darling — who notched three apiece.
The Crimson Storm restricted Huskies’ sharpshooters Braylon Mullins and Solo Ball to only eight mixed factors on three subject objectives by blanketing the 3-point line, understanding Ejiofor was all the time there behind them.
St. John’s level guard Dylan Darling makes an attempt to steal the ball from UConn’s Silas Demary Jr. throughout the 2026 Massive East Males’s Event Championship sport. (Picture by Sarah Stier/Getty Pictures)
3. St. John’s responds with early haymaker after ugly loss at UConn
When these two groups met at PeoplesBank Enviornment three weeks in the past, the post-game scenes were ugly for St. John’s.
Having suffered what was unquestionably his worst loss since taking up this system — a 72-40 defeat wherein the Crimson Storm missed their remaining 24 subject purpose makes an attempt — Pitino declined to take part in a conventional information convention, selecting as an alternative to talk for roughly 75 seconds outdoors the visiting locker room. Then he snapped at a St. John’s staffer loudly sufficient for the swarm of reporters to listen to. Then an interview with Ejiofor, the Crimson Storm’s captain, was delayed as a result of he wanted stitches for a busted lip.
Such post-game dysfunction was consistent with the ugly mess St. John’s had put forth on the court docket: a efficiency so surprising that it was honest to surprise how lengthy it’d linger. However the reply, because it turned out, was devoid of any lingering in any respect. Pitino rallied his group in time to win a second consecutive Massive East common season title, with the Crimson Storm reeling off six consecutive wins ever since. And within the early moments of Saturday’s rubber match towards UConn, there was nothing to counsel St. John’s harbored any worry of the Huskies.
Fueled by a possibility to atone for the embarrassment in Hartford, the Crimson Storm seized management virtually instantly. An emphatic 10-0 spurt to start the night — commonly referred to as a “kill shot” in the analytics world — decidedly swung momentum towards St. John’s earlier than the Huskies appeared to acknowledge the sport had begun. Banshee-like effort from Ejiofor, energy ahead Dillon Mitchell and Darling, an unsung hero when Pitino’s squad defeated UConn in the identical constructing earlier this season, overwhelmed a Huskies’ group that coasted via wins over Xavier and Georgetown by 41 mixed factors.
Greater than 4 minutes elapsed earlier than UConn manufactured its first level. And by the 12:34 mark, with the St. John’s lead nonetheless in double figures, Hurley acquired a technical foul for arguing with the referees. His group retreated to the locker room down 40-27 on the break after trailing by as many as 17 factors.
4. One other lackluster effort from UConn with a championship at stake
UConn’s Tarris Reed Jr. goes to the basket as St. John’s gamers Bryce Hopkins and Zuby Ejiofor defend throughout the 2026 Massive East Males’s Event Championship sport. (Picture by Sarah Stier/Getty Pictures)
Precisely one week in the past, the Huskies entered Fiserv Discussion board in Milwaukee needing solely to beat lowly Marquette to safe a share of the Massive East regular-season title. And although Shaka Good continues to be the extremely profitable head coach of the Golden Eagles, this yr’s group was something however certainly one of his classic groups. By that time, Marquette had already misplaced 19 video games after dropping simply 21 over the earlier two campaigns. It ought to have been a routine win for then-No. 4 UConn.
As a substitute, the Huskies imploded. They made solely three of 24 makes an attempt from behind the arc, turned the ball over 16 occasions and allowed the Golden Eagles to shoot 48% from the sphere in an eventual 68-62 defeat that handed St. John’s an outright league title. Hurley was so incensed within the waning seconds that he received ejected and fined $25,000.
It meant that a part of the narrative surrounding UConn throughout this week’s Massive East Event revolved round redemption — the concept that the Huskies have been left crestfallen by their effort towards Marquette and would channel that frustration at Madison Sq. Backyard. And that largely occurred throughout complete victories within the quarterfinals and semifinals, with Hurley and his group resembling the postseason juggernaut followers have come to anticipate lately. They entered the title sport towards St. John’s taking part in their greatest basketball in weeks.
Which is why, each now and in the long term, it’s fairly regarding that the Huskies tripped over themselves in a second consecutive pressure-packed setting. How will they reply within the Massive Dance?
4½. What’s subsequent?
(Picture by Sarah Stier/Getty Pictures)
A surprising loss by Florida earlier on Saturday afternoon despatched a shock wave throughout the highest of the game. That the Gators have been clobbered, 91-74, by Vanderbilt within the SEC Event semifinals cleared a possible path for UConn to probably attain the highest line come Choice Sunday — assuming the Huskies might beat St. John’s. However UConn promptly squandered that chance and can virtually definitely obtain a 2-seed when the bracket is revealed.
The Crimson Storm, in the meantime, ought to profit considerably from one other high-profile victory in a marketing campaign largely devoid of them. Non-conference losses to then-No. 15 Alabama, then-No. 15 Iowa State, then-No. 21 Auburn and Kentucky all got here earlier than Pitino molded his group into the cohesive unit that romped via the Massive East. Two victories over UConn — one in February, one on Saturday night time — are unquestionably the group’s greatest wins.
FOX Sports activities’ bracketologist Mike DeCourcy projected St. John’s as a 4-seed previous to beating the Huskies a second time. Maybe this newest marquee end result can transfer the Crimson Storm up a line.
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