March Madness: Red Storm's brilliant season ends in tears
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino talks with his team during the second half against Duke in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA college basketball tournament on Friday, March 27, 2026, in Washington. Credit: AP/Abbie Parr
WASHINGTON — If the joy St. John’s brought to New York this season had not been so abundant, the disappointment on Friday night would not have been so devastating.
The Red Storm took everyone on quite a ride, going from high expectations to severely disappointing to blossoming potential to disrespected powerhouse.
The end of the ride came Friday night. St. John’s had a massively successful season come to a sad conclusion with a down-to-the-wire 80-75 loss to overall No. 1 seed Duke in an NCAA Tournament East Regional semifinal before a sellout crowd of 20,356 at Capital One Arena.
That crowd included a large throng of Red Storm fans who turned out to witness the biggest game the program has played since it last went this deep into March Madness, when it reached the Elite Eight in 1998-99.
As St. John’s spun its captivating season-long epic, there were all the subplots and storylines.
To name four, there were the stories of Zuby Ejiofor, Bryce Hopkins, Dillon Mitchell and Dylan Darling.
Ejiofor, the lone returner surrounded by four newcomers in the starting lineup, reached star heights in New York and single-name recognition in the nation’s largest market. He became not only the unanimous choice of Big East coaches as the conference’s Player of the Year but the leader of the first St. John’s program to capture the Big East outright regular-season and tournament titles in consecutive seasons.
Hopkins transferred in from Providence for his final season of eligibility. He’d been a first-team all-Big East player as a sophomore before suffering a crushing knee injury that limited him to 17 games in the two seasons before this one. He was inconsistent for a long stretch but became a force late — and one of St. John’s best players — when he was fully healthy.
Mitchell transferred in from Cincinnati for his final season of eligibility. A tremendous athlete, he was sought for his defense and rebounding and ended up being essential to the Red Storm turning their season around. His ability to handle the ball, court vision and all-around skill set landed him in the starting lineup in the first week of January, and all St. John’s did after that was win — 21 victories in 22 games before the loss to Duke.
Darling was an insurance policy when he transferred from Idaho State for his junior season and looked out of place at this level in the first half of the season. He caught up, made big plays late to secure a half-dozen wins, became a starter and hit a game-winning driving layup against Kansas last weekend that will live on for years.
All four of their stories ended with devastation.
In the interview room after the game, Ejiofor broke down and wept while being asked how he hopes to be remembered. He had to return to the locker room without completing an answer that began “just as a competitive player on the court, but my character is something that I pride myself on the most. To all [in] St. John’s Nation, I appreciate you guys over the past three years just embracing this player . . . ”
Hopkins went to pieces in the locker room while talking about the season he had, stopping for nearly a minute to cry before gathering himself.
“It’s tough,” he said before halting. “Everything that I’ve been through with my injury, getting back to a place where I could be 100% healthy, Coach giving me a chance to play for him and the run that we made to the Sweet 16 [are] something I [will] always remember. I don’t know what the future has planned for me, but I’ll always remember this team, this run we made.’’
Mitchell’s face wore stone-faced defeat in the interview room. Asked what he would tell his younger self about the season that was, he replied, “Just enjoy the moments. It comes fast. It goes fast. It’s tough.”
Darling, who had a chance for another hero’s turn in the last 10 seconds of the game, missed badly on a potential tying three-pointer. He too was red-eyed in the locker room. When asked about the shot, he couldn’t muster an answer.
“They were just the greatest kids in the world,” coach Rick Pitino said. “They wanted to win so badly. They were willing to do anything to try and win. I’ll never have a team like this again with that type of attitude . . . My heart breaks for them right now.”
St. John’s ultimately ended up very close to being the team it was supposed to be at the beginning, the one with the “contender label” and the No. 5 national ranking. It stopped being that after a bunch of high-profile losses in November and December. Then came the 21 wins in 22 games that grabbed the attention of New York sports fans, followed by the disrespectful No. 5 seeding for The Big Dance and assignment to San Diego.
It would be hard to say the Red Storm didn’t look like a “contender” when they took Duke to the wire.
It was a captivating season by a captivating team. One can’t help but be like Pitino and feel heartbroken for them all.
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.
