St. John's closes on 33-13 run to get past Seton Hall, earn 5th straight win
St. John's forward Dillon Mitchell controls the ball while be defended by Seton Hall forward Josh Rivera in the first half of a Big East men's basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
All hail the comeback kids.
St. John’s turned in its biggest display of grit and fortitude to stay on the ascent Tuesday night. Seton Hall had shown more hustle and tenacity for 25 minutes as it built a 15-point second half lead and that’s when the Red Storm finally dug in. They turned up the volume on their defense and rebounding, tapped into the energy of a Garden crowd 13,776 strong and snagged a 65-60 Big East victory after closing the game on a 33-13 run.
St. John’s (14-5, 7-1) extended its winning streak to five games. Its win also gives coach Rick Pitino his 899th career on-court win to equal the total of Bob Knight for fourth place on that all-time list. The Red Storm would almost certainly move back into the national rankings if they can give Pitino No. 900 this weekend on the road against Xavier and coach Richard Pitino, his son.
Before Tuesday, St. John’s had only won one game while trailing in the second half, when it was down two at Butler. And the Storm did not pull out the victory with great performance as much as passionate play. They were still down 11 and minus-14 on the backboards with 12:10 to play before out-rebounding the Pirates 20-6 the rest of the way.
“Without question, this is my favorite game of the season,” Pitino said. “Now, we’ve played better. But it’s my favorite game of the season because, when you’re down 15 to a team like Seton Hall and you’re getting your backs kicked on the offensive glass and you’re in foul trouble, and you come back . . . and wind up with 20 offensive rebounds, you really wanted to win this game.”
AJ Staton-McCray made a layup with 16:03 remaining to give Seton Hall (14-5, 4-4) a 47-32 lead. Soon after the timeout, St. John’s began the comeback and stirred its best home crowd of the season. When Dillon Mitchell scored off a feed from Ruben Prey, the Storm had grabbed a 55-54 lead — only their second lead of the game and first since 23-22 with 7:22 left in the first half — and one they wouldn’t relinquish.
The margin was still one point before Zuby Ejiofor was fouled on a putback attempt and made a pair of free throws with 1:21 left. On the ensuing Hall possession, Dylan Darling stole the ball from Adam Clark and took it for a layup to extend the lead to five.
“I said, ‘You may get in the NCAA Tournament and you may not have it, like we don’t have it tonight, so you’re going to go home? Or you’re going to win the game?’” Pitino said of his message in the timeout.
“That was the challenge: ‘You’re down 15 and you’re going to go home [from the] NCAA Tournament, say goodbye to everybody and never see each other again or you move on. That’s the challenge that we have right now.’”
“We discovered that there is no quit in us,” Bryce Hopkins said. “We didn’t come out how we wanted to in the first half and I think the discussion between me and the guys was ‘who’s going to be the tougher team? Are we just going to fall down and take their punch and keep getting punched or are we going to get back up and throw our punch?’ . . . At the 15-minute mark something clicked with the guys. We decided to play every possession like it was our last.”
Mitchell finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds and Hopkins had 13 points and eight rebounds to pace St. John’s. Ejiofor was hampered by foul trouble but finished with nine points and six assists.
Staton-McCray had 16 points and Stephon Payne III had 13 points and 15 rebounds for the Pirates, who have now lost three straight and fallen from a No. 25 national ranking.
“For pretty much 30 minutes we controlled the game,” Seton Hall coach Shaheen Holloway said, “then they just imposed their will.”
“One of the biggest things was rebounding the ball, hitting people, [getting] offensive rebounds,” Mitchell said. “But the main thing was just leaving it all on the court, playing hard. Down 15, you got nothing to lose. You’ve got to go out there and try to get back in the game. And that’s what we did.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
