Roger Rubin: St. John's upsetting UConn? Renewed focus will be the key after win over DePaul.
St. John's forward Bryce Hopkins grabs a rebound during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against DePaul on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026 in Chicago. Credit: AP/Nam Y. Huh
CHICAGO — Bring on the UConn Huskies!
One can say whatever they want about 22nd-ranked St. John’s prevailing over DePaul on Tuesday night for a 68-56 Big East victory before 4,595 at Wintrust Arena, but there is no denying that in winning their eighth straight game, the Red Storm looked like a team willing to do whatever it takes to win.
On offense, they weren’t able to overwhelm the tough Blue Demons' defense and were fortunate to have a one-point lead at halftime — both true. They missed the mark on 14 three-point attempts and nine free throws — also true. However, St. John’s was not going to lose this rock fight of a game and prelude to Friday’s much-anticipated showdown with No. 3 Connecticut at the Garden.
“You prepare in February for March and right now, I think whatever the style we have to play, their will to win is great,” St. John’s coach Rick Pitino said of his squad.
More to the point, the Red Storm players believe they are ready for this huge opportunity to finally land a big-time signature win that could dramatically impact their NCAA Tournament seed and pull them into a first-place tie in the conference standings.
“I think we're ready . . . I feel like we match up well,” Bryce Hopkins said. “And it's a great matchup — head to head — and I think we’ll be ready for it.”
“It's UConn Friday night. MSG. What more could you ask for?” Zuby Ejiofor said. “It’s just two great programs going head to head, two great coaches [and] it's going to be exciting. It's going to be a packed crowd, but all we can worry about is ourselves and . . . preparing like a championship team. [Then] just doing whatever it takes to come out with a win.”
Had DePaul not missed on a bunch of open looks at the basket, St. John’s might have trailed at halftime. But they turned up the defense in the second half and that will to win started to show through
The Storm grabbed the upper hand with a 15-2 run that included five points from Oziyah Sellers and four apiece from Ejiofor and Ian Jackson for a 49-37 lead with 10:32 left. The Demons (12-11, 4-8) cut the margin to six but got no closer.
Ejiofor had 16 points, nine rebounds and four assists with 11 of his points coming after halftime. Hopkins had 15 points and Sellers had 13 points, including 10 in the second half for the Storm (17-5, 10-1).
The overarching regular-season goal for a college basketball team is always twofold. The primary directive is to be reaching peak performance in February into March. The second part is to finish with a strong record with high-profile wins that the NCAA Tournament selection committee takes notice of and rewards with a good seeding.
The ugliness of Tuesday night aside, St. John’s certainly looks like it is accomplishing the primary directive.
The second ingredient in the recipe? St. John’s wasn’t able to accomplish that during the non-conference portion of its schedule, failing to gain a signature win against Alabama, Iowa State and Auburn in November and Kentucky in December. When they played those games, they weren’t ready, having added four new starters and a total of six new members of the rotation.
The Big East schedule in this “down year” doesn’t have many chances for big-time wins that can influence NCAA Tournament position, not like the Big Ten and SEC. Still St. John’s does have opportunities. The biggest are its two games against UConn.
And the Storm are showing the same sort of will to win that we saw in last season’s team that won 31 games and the Big East regular-season and tournament titles. It surfaced recently when the Storm erased a 15-point deficit to win by five over Seton Hall at the Garden and a 16-point deficit to win by five over Xavier in Cincinnati.
“They have a great will to win, like last year's team. They are undefeated on the road in the Big East [and] it's very difficult to win on the road,” Pitino said. “They're playing whatever style they have to play. They're getting it done and winning.
“So now they're going to play a team that's the best offensive team in the league, the best defensive team in the league, one of the elite teams in the nation. [UConn] doesn’t really have a weakness.”
It’s been more than six weeks since St. John’s got a shot to score a win that would make the college basketball world sit up and take notice. Perhaps the Red Storm weren’t quite ready. In the time since, they have honed their game and their minds. Maybe they will finally be ready on Friday.
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.
