Bryce Hopkins foresees a third meeting for Red Storm versus Providence
St. John's Red Storm forward Bryce Hopkins dribbles the ball up court against the Creighton Bluejays in the second half of a Big East men's basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 21, 2026. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The bracket for this week’s Big East Tournament wasn’t set in stone until the final buzzer sounded on Georgetown’s one-point win over Providence just after 10 p.m. Saturday in Washington, but Bryce Hopkins had a feeling about what it would look like.
Hopkins, the 6-8 forward for 13th-ranked St. John’s, suspected he might be looking at the possibility of one more game against his former team — Providence — and sure enough, there it was. Ninth-seeded Providence meets No. 8 Butler in a first-round game Wednesday at the Garden, with the winner advancing to face the top-seeded Red Storm on Thursday.
“I don’t know what made me feel like that, but it was just a feeling that I had: that we’re going to match up with them again,” Hopkins said Monday night at a team appearance for a massive turnout at the Applebee’s in the Fresh Meadows section of Queens.
If there is a game St. John’s followers want to see at the Garden this week, it has to be between the Red Storm and sixth-ranked and second-seeded Connecticut. A close runner-up has to be Round 3 of Friars-Storm, whose meetings have been the most memorable of this season.
Round 1 at the Garden on Jan. 3 was an upset loss that might have been the turning point in St. John’s season. Afterward, Red Storm coach Rick Pitino declared the situation “back to the wall early,” the team held a meeting in which Lefteris Liotopoulos described the message as “we’re not losing again” — and St. John’s ripped off 13 straight wins.
Round 2 put Hopkins back in Providence’s Amica Mutual Pavilion — the building he called home the previous three seasons — in an explosive atmosphere in which he was the focus of the venom.
The Friars’ Duncan Powell clotheslined Hopkins on a breakaway for a go-ahead basket and set off a melee that resulted in six ejections (a seventh came when Jamier Jones later hit Zuby Ejiofor with a cheap shot in the back).
Friars forward Oswin Erhunmwunse, a Hopkins teammate the season before, pulled Hopkins from the fray as the brawl ensued. The two have exchanged text messages since, with Hopkins thanking him for having “my back in that situation, showing the love that we have for each other while we were there together.”
“I don’t know what fed into the players doing that, but it is what it is,” added Hopkins, who on Sunday was voted an all-conference second-teamer by the coaches.
The Providence fans clearly were the biggest element. Based on their chatter on social media, they resented that Hopkins, who was supposed to be a star of the team, could play in only three games after coming back from a torn ACL.
He said they didn’t understand that he suffered a bone bruise in the surgically repaired knee in a December game against DePaul that was going to sideline him again until after midseason.
“It was more than halfway through the season and I had to make a better decision,” Hopkins said. “I wanted another year to prove myself . . . give myself a good chance at making the NBA. So that was my decision to sit out.”
As for the move to St. John’s, he said, “I came here to be on a winning team. I came here to play bigger games and be on a bigger stage. I feel like I did that.”
Unlike the other six transfers on the current Red Storm roster, Hopkins knows the voltage of playing the Big East Tournament at the Garden from his seasons with the Friars, and he can’t wait for the experience again. As he explained, “It’s very electric in there with every fan chanting for their [team].”
As for a potential Round 3 between the Red Storm and Friars, Hopkins envisions something sedate.
“It’s going to be the same thing: It’s going to be very aggressive, high emotions all over the place, and they’re going to come with their best shot again,'' he said. "I’m sure it [would] be a tough, physical game again. Whatever the case may be, we’re going to be ready for it.”
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.
