Roger Rubin: St. John's Zuby Ejiofor, with Haggerty Award in hand, sets eyes on NBA dream
Zuby Ejiofor of St. John's slam dunks against Duke during the second half in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Capital One Arena on March 27, 2026. Credit: Getty Images/Emilee Chinn
If his three seasons at St. John’s showed us anything, Zuby Ejiofor never shrugs off an opportunity to get better. He showed up for his sophomore season as a transfer from Kansas who was a solid interior defender and not much else. He emerged as one of the most-decorated players in Red Storm history.
Ejiofor developed into a two-time All-Big East first-teamer and this year helped St. John’s (31-7) repeat as Big East regular-season and tournament champions and reach its first NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 since 1999. The 6-9 star was the Big East Player of the Year and Naismith Hall of Fame’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award winner as the best collegiate center in the country.
On Thursday, he earned his penultimate accolade as a St. John’s player when he was announced as this season’s Frank J. Haggerty Award winner as the New York metropolitan area’s Player of the Year as voted by the Met Basketball Writers Association. The Haggerty Award is one of the area’s oldest and most prestigious accolades. Still to come for Ejiofor will be induction along with 10 other St. John’s legends into a planned ring-of-honor style tribute. Ejiofor is the 25th St. John’s player to win the award and second in a row following RJ Luis Jr.
Ejiofor was doing what he does best this week — using an opportunity to get better by training in Las Vegas for next month’s NBA Draft Combine, workouts for NBA teams and the June NBA Draft. Based on mock drafts, he could be a late first-round pick or early second-round selection.
“It's a true blessing and a true honor to win the award,” Ejiofor said. “You know, I had one heck of a year. I don't really want to go into all accolades and stuff, but [this] was never really about me. It was more so another testament to my teammates, the coaching staff and the amount of belief that they had [in] me throughout the entire season. So, it goes to them.”
Time is precious for Ejiofor. He couldn’t attend the awards ceremony in Tarrytown on Thursday night, but he was able to break away for one last weekend in Miami with coach Rick Pitino, members of the coaching staff and the other players who had played their final season — Dillon Mitchell, Bryce Hopkins, Oziyah Sellers and Handje Tamba.
He called what might have been their last go-round together “one of my favorite weekends of my entire life” and said they did not chat about the past or what might have been but rather what they were planning for their futures.
Asked about the 80-75 loss to overall top-seeded Duke that ended their season, Ejiofor said it wasn’t until Michigan had defeated UConn in the title game that he was truly able to turn the page.
“I was pretty sad about how things ended, but you just got to look back and just reminisce about how the past two or three years happened for me,” he said. “You know, I had life-changing moments. I was able to win four championships. So it was one heck of a ride. It was a great way to go out.”
Asked if he thought the Storm would have been in the title game if they had gotten past Duke, he replied, “Definitely, I thought so for sure.”
“We were pretty confident throughout the end of the season,” he added. “We [were] starting off great. We've been playing great basketball towards the end. It was a couple possessions away from winning the Duke game. And then seeing UConn the following game as well and having a once in a lifetime opportunity to go to the Final Four. That’s all we were thinking about. But . . . . we definitely felt like we had the team and the chance to make it all the way.”
Today, Ejiofor works with a team of coaches and trainers and nutritionists to better himself. He has a shot consultant. He puts up 1,000 shots each day over the course of two long workouts.
“[Everyone] is trying to make sure that I maximize my opportunity so whenever that time comes for me to show these teams what I'm capable of doing,” he said.
Ejiofor is the curious sort and does occasionally look at mock drafts to see where he is, but he doesn’t hold it close. Is there something to prove?
“I feel like I’ve still got a lot to prove to myself, to a lot of people out there,” he said. “[There’s] a lot of narratives about who is better — this, that and the third. I’m not trying to be better than anybody. I'm just trying to be the best version of myself . . . [And] just be ready for the moment whenever I get the opportunity to show people what I’ve got. I feel like I'm going to be more than ready to do that.”
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.
