St. John's dominates UConn to win second straight Big East Tournament title
St. John's Zuby Ejiofor dunks against the UConn Huskies in the first half of the Big East Tournament men’s basketball final at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Zuby Ejiofor completed a sensational wire-to-wire Big East season Saturday night on the biggest stage and in St. John’s biggest game of the season.
The Red Storm’s star center was anointed the best player in the conference before a Big East game had tipped off, and he remained that through the entire regular season. Ejiofor was voted the conference’s Player of the Year after St. John’s won its second straight outright regular-season championship, a program first.
And so it was again on the final day of conference competition. Ejiofor was the driving force as 13th-ranked and top-seeded St. John’s posted a resounding 72-52 victory over No. 6-ranked and second-seeded Connecticut before a sellout crowd of 19,812 at the Garden.
St. John’s (28-6) is the first team in the conference’s storied history to earn both the outright regular-season championship and the Big East Tournament championship in consecutive years.
The team’s postgame news conference was attended by St. John’s legends Walter Berry and Mark Jackson, and with a nod to them, coach Rick Pitino said, “There’s so much history with St. John’s and we brought it all back in three years — not only with a high ranking, but the first time in history to win back-to-back regular season [and] back-to-back tournaments.”
Ejiofor had 18 points, nine rebounds and seven blocked shots for the Red Storm, along with several moments that will live on. He had a finger wag after a second-half blocked shot. He exhorted the crowd in a timeout after the Red Storm repelled UConn’s only real comeback attempt. And when he was removed from the game in the final minute, with the fans chanting his name, he hugged Pitino and broke down in the embrace of associate head coach Steve Masiello.
Asked about the moment, he said, “Everybody in the locker room . . . earned it. They earned it. This is what they came here for and we’ve accomplished a few of the goals that we set out to do.”
Ejiofor and Pitino celebrated the win by cutting the final strand of the net together.
Bryce Hopkins had 18 points and shot 7-for-9 for the Red Storm, who missed their final 24 shots in a 32-point loss to UConn in Hartford less than three weeks earlier. Oziyah Sellers scored 14 points and ignited St. John’s at the start of each half. Dillon Mitchell had nine points and nine rebounds and was central to the defense that held the Huskies (29-5) to a season low in scoring. Dylan Darling had eight points, five assists, three steals and zero turnovers.
In capturing its fifth Big East Tournament championship, St. John’s may have changed the arc it’s been traveling heading into the Sunday announcement of the NCAA Tournament field. The Red Storm were the preseason fifth-ranked team in the country but lost four high-profile non-conference games in November and December and then a home game with Providence at the start of January. They’ve been envisioned as no better than a No. 5 seed for The Big Dance, but their domination of the conference tournament — winning all three games by double figures — could improve their seeding outlook.
“Like I’ve said pretty much all year, we’ve had a target on our backs and we had to battle through adversity all season,” Ejiofor said. “Nobody believed we could get to this moment.”
Connecticut (29-5) likely will be a No. 2 seed in the 68-team draw.
St. John’s became a team that attacked games in this tournament. In Thursday’s quarterfinal win over Providence, the Red Storm scored the first nine points and never trailed. In Friday’s semifinal win over Seton Hall, they scored the first eight points and never trailed. And so it was again against the Huskies as St. John’s opened the game with 10 unanswered points and never trailed. Sellers had eight of the Red Storm’s first 12 points.
“These guys . . . competed all game, and they understood the assignment: We had to set the tone early against UConn, because they’re such a great program,’’ Ejiofor said. “So [Sellers] set the tone early like we did pretty much all tournament.”
The Huskies had one strong run in them and cut the margin to 49-42 with 12:34 to play before Pitino called a timeout.
“I had to waste a timeout . . . and I said to them. ‘You are fatiguing. Don’t let this clock run out. You’ve got to keep the pressure on them. Johnnies don’t get tired,’ ” Pitino said. “They all played a lot of minutes in this tournament and didn’t fatigue and, at that point, they just turned it around and dominated the game once again.”
Hopkins’ jumper got the Red Storm some momentum and Ejiofor took it from there with a three-pointer, a hook shot in the lane and a block on Silas Demary Jr. The latter started a fast break that ended with a windmill dunk by Mitchell for a 13-point edge.
UConn missed 13 consecutive shots in the final 8:03.
The Red Storm have 11 new players on the roster who watched on opening night as the 2024-25 championship banner was unveiled at Carnesecca Arena.
“Seeing when they hung the banner up [and] they got the rings, it’s unreal and it’s something that the new guys wanted to be a part of,” Mitchell said. “Those were our goals, and now to accomplish something we set out to do, it says a lot.”
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.
