St. John's will play Arizona at MSG in December, in Phoenix the following season
A view of the crowd in the first half of the Big East men’s basketball tournament final between the St. John's Red Storm and the UConn Huskies at Madison Square Garden on March 14, 2026. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The plan hatched between St. John’s and the Garden to play even more high-profile games there in the 2026-27 season is beginning to produce results.
The Red Storm will host Arizona — which played in the Final Four earlier this month — in a non-conference game on Dec. 5 at The World’s Most Famous Arena as part of the Hall of Fame series, The teams will have a rematch the following season in Phoenix. CBS Sports reporter Jon Rothstein initially reported the details.
As Newsday reported last month, St. John’s and Garden officials were working to expand the portfolio of games beyond the 13 dates (12 regular-season games and an exhibition) in 2025-26 to possibly 16 in 2026-27. Shortly after the Red Storm's run to their first NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 since 1999, coach Rick Pitino recorded a video for fan consumption that promised they would play another challenging non-conference schedule.
“We're looking to do more and more high-profile games with them, and [although] that comes from us, it’s even more so from them,” Garden executive vice president for marquee events and operations Joel Fisher told Newsday last month. “In the past, they weren't willing to play high-profile, tough non-conference games. Now Rick gets it's a smart thing to do to get them ready for the [NCAA] Tournament, and so we work very closely with them to find dates to do these non-conference games that are very high-profile that we know will be great competition for them and also great games that draw a lot of people here. So we're definitely looking to do more and more of those with them.”
St. John’s already is slated to play three high-profile games at the Players Era Festival and will face Alabama in Birmingham.
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.
