Roger Rubin: St. John's one win from Big East Tournament repeat
St. John's forward Zuby Ejiofor dunks against Seton Hall in the first half of a Big East men’s basketball tournament semifinal at Madison Square Garden on Friday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
On Thursday, St. John’s was matched in a Big East Tournament quarterfinal against one of the nation’s better offenses in Providence. The Red Storm took the Friars out of the game fast.
On Friday night, the 13th-ranked and top-seeded Red Storm got a semifinal matchup with one of the nation’s best defensive teams in Seton Hall. St. John’s earned a 78-68 victory before another sellout crowd of 19,812 at the Garden.
Two games. Two very different kinds of opponents. Two very resounding wins.
Now St. John’s is going to clash with a team that is one of the nation’s best at both offense and defense: Connecticut.
The Red Storm (27-6) will face the No. 6-ranked and second-seeded Huskies in Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. Big East Tournament title game at the Garden after UConn downed No. 11 seed Georgetown, 67-51.
St. John’s will be seeking to win the conference tournament in consecutive seasons for the first time in the much-anticipated third meeting of the Big East titans.
The teams split their season series. The Red Storm halted the Huskies’ 18-game winning streak with a nine-point victory on Feb. 6 at the Garden. UConn (29-4) ended St. John’s 13-game winning streak with a humiliating 32-point decision on Feb. 25 in which the Red Storm missed their final 24 shots.
“Both programs, the whole year, have pushed each other,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “We’re a 29-win team and they’re a 27-win team. It’s two of the best teams in the country. It’s going to be a death match for the Big East championship.”
That St. John’s showed it can beat fast-paced, high-scoring teams as well as deliberate defensive squads could be a good omen for the Red Storm when they begin play next week in the NCAA Tournament
The Big Dance can force a team to face a variety of different styles, and that’s why coach Rick Pitino has said “it’s always about matchups.”
The Red Storm are looking well-equipped for whatever the second half of March may bring.
“It’s the makeup of our team,” Bryce Hopkins said. “We have guys that are very versatile. We can defend anyone at a high level. We’re athletic. We’re big on the frontcourt. We have speed in the backcourt. We adapt to any playing style any team has. And I now feel like we are always the more prepared team because of Coach Pitino and his staff, and that’s about how we’ll use all the things we have.”
“No matter what the tempo of the other team is, we have tools to combat it,” Dillon Mitchell said. “But we always have to play St John’s basketball, and that means physicality and grit. We can’t let anyone outdo us in that.”
Fourth-seeded Seton Hall (21-12) has shown plenty of physicality and grit this season, but it couldn’t match St. John’s out of the gate as the Red Storm raced to 8-0 and 22-14 leads, scoring their first 20 points in the paint. Later, when the Pirates adjusted and St. John’s needed three-pointers to mix things up, Joson Sanon provided three big ones.
St. John’s was even quicker out of the locker room after halftime, scoring the first 11 points and getting stops on five straight Seton Hall possessions to go up by 19 for the first time at 49-30. The Pirates got the margin to six at 62-56 with 4:41 left, but the Red Storm responded with seven unanswered points.
Zuby Ejiofor scored 20 points, Sanon had 15 and Mitchell added 13 points, six rebounds, five assists and zero turnovers in 36 minutes. Hopkins had 13 points, seven rebounds and four assists in 34 minutes as the Red Storm won for the 18th time in their last 19 games.
Seton Hall was limited to 41% shooting and had 13 turnovers.
“I thought defensively, both nights we came out like starving dogs — ready to play — and that’s a good sign for us,” Pitino said.
In the past three weeks — since the 32-point loss to UConn in Hartford — St. John’s has played some of its best basketball when there was something at stake.
The Red Storm bounced back from an abysmal loss by beating NCAA Tournament-bound Villanova by 32 points. When they had a shot to lock up the regular-season title last week against Seton Hall, they seized it. And now they are one win away from another title.
“We’re playing for a championship,” Pitino said. “We played for the regular season as if our life was on the line. We’re going to play tomorrow as if our life is on the line. Then we’ll worry about the [NCAA] Tournament, but we’re not thinking of that now.”
Asked about the second semifinal and if he’d like one more go-round with the Huskies, Hopkins replied, “It doesn’t matter who we play. We are after a championship. We have what it takes to face down any opponent. We will be ready.”
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.
