St. John's Clinches First Big East Regular Season Title In 40 Years

A celebration decades in the making after the buzzer sounded. Photo by Jason Schott.

The St. John's Red Storm clinched the outright Big East Regular Season Championship for the first since the 1984-85 season with a gritty 71-61 victory over Seton Hall on Saturday afternoon at a sold-out Madison Square Garden.

Prior to this, St. John's had won the Big East Regular Season title five times, all with Lou Carnesecca at the helm, in 1980, '83, '85, '86, and '92. The 1985 one was the only outright title until this one.

Rick Pitino, in his second season as the Red Storm's head coach, has now earned 13 conference titles in his 37 seasons as a Division I Head Coach. He is the first coach to lead five different schools to a regular season championship - Boston University, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona, St. John’s - with four of those coming in his second year at the helm.

"We're happy for a lot of reasons," Pitino said afterwards. "This was a goal of ours. A lot of people share in this dream of ours from the beginning of the year. For me, looking behind the basket and seeing the students out in full force is very rewarding for me, personally. Seeing a sold-out Madison Square Garden again is very rewarding for me, personally. The last two games we haven't played great, but Seton Hall had a lot to do with it tonight."

The confetti was flying during the trophy presentation. Photo by Jason Schott.

The Red Storm are now 26-4 overall, and 17-2 in the Big East - winners of an astonishing 15 out of their last 16 in conference play. Equally remarkable is that St. John's four losses are by a combined seven points.

St. John's completed a perfect regular season home record of 18-0, the first time it has done that since a 16-0 mark 93 years ago, the 1931-32 season under Head Coach James "Buck" Freeman. Overall, dating back to last season, St. John's has won 20 straight home games.

Pitino was asked how he has handled expectations this season, as they spent the first couple months under the radar before attention started to bubble up as they went unbeaten in January, and becoming a national story the past few weeks since they won at UConn on February 7, and he said, "We wanted to win the Big East. We have our goals, but even though we had our goals, I kept telling them about getting on Broadway. I said, ‘Once you get on Broadway, the pressure's there because your show could get canceled.’ And I think the last two games, they were under a lot of pressure, and that was a great thing because now it really mounts. They see all their fans here. They don't want to disappoint them. The pressure is unbelievable. On the road, place is semi-packed, and the pressure to win is really, really great. And for them, because they've never been in these situations before, you need them to learn it. So, even though we wanted to win the Big East, we just went game-by-game-by-game, and then it finally came where we had to win these games to get it. We didn't want to hear anything about a tie. We have respect for Creighton and everybody else in the league, but there was no ties for us. We got it done tonight; we'll be totally focused on getting Marquette."

That is where the regular season finally will be next Saturday at noon eastern time, before the Big East Tournament commences on March 12, with St. John's holding a bye so they will have the first day off.

The pressure Pitino was referring to was apparent early in this one, as St. John's did not get on the board for the first three minutes and 43 seconds, until RJ Luis Jr. slammed one home.

Seton Hall raced out to a 10-2 lead before St. John's stormed back (pun intentional) and took a 16-14 lead on a hook shot from Zuby Ejiofor at the 10:23 mark. The big man then followed it up with a dunk, which really got the crowd going.

Zuby Ejiofor's dunk, which made it 18-16 St. John's. First of three photos by Jason Schott.

St. John's built up a five-point lead, 25-20, on a Kadary Richmond driving layup at the 5:06 mark. It looked like they were heading into the break with a six-point lead, 34-28, when Luis Jr. slammed one home, but Richmond fouled Dylan Addae-Wusu as he attempted to heave one from beyond the center line as time expired. Addae-Wusu buried two of his three free throws to make it a four-point game at halftime.

The second half was a tight one, as St. John's clinged to a one-possession lead until Seton Hall tied it at 49 at the 10:01 mark on a floating jumper from Isaiah Coleman.

St. John's got the lead back on a fast break layup from Ejiofor, and that started a 10-3 run that gave them a 59-52 lead with 6:43 left.

By this point, they rode it out like they have all year, and went up nine, at 67-58, on a Luis Jr. free throw with 1:27 left.

St. John's players embrace at the center circle as they clock hit 0.00. Photo by Jason Schott.

St. John's was led by RJ Luis Jr., who had 21 points on 7-13 from the field, including 2-4 from behind the arc, with six rebounds, two assists, and two steals. 

Zuby Ejiofor had a double-double with 17 points (5-10 FG, 7-10 free throws) and 10 rebounds, with an assist and a steal. Deivon Smith had 10 points, four rebounds, three assists, and two steals. Kadary Richmond had nine points, nine rebounds, narrowly missing a double-double on both counts; seven assists, and three steals. Sadiku Ibine Ayo had eight points off the bench, with five rebounds, an assist, and a steal.

Photo by Jason Schott.

PITINO POSTGAME: St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino addressed the media after the game, and he opened with this statement: “We're happy for a lot of reasons. This was a goal of ours. A lot of people share in this dream of ours from the beginning of the year. For me, looking behind the basket and seeing the students out in full force is very rewarding for me, personally. Seeing a sold-out Madison Square Garden again is very rewarding for me, personally. The last two games we haven't played great, but Seton Hall had a lot to do with it tonight.”

On the team getting back in game shape after dealing with injuries: “First of all, about 20 to 25 percent of the reason we win is that we are always one of the best-conditioned teams in the nation. And when you have guys sit out, you go from incredible conditioning, and you miss two days. RJ [Luis Jr.] said it when he missed the time; he said, ‘Coach, I'm really rusty.’ So, if you play slow tempo and you miss a day or two, it's not a big deal. But when you play like this at optimum conditioning, and you miss two days, it's a lot, and that's why Kadary Richmond is not playing real well right now. It's conditioning-based. So, he needed to get the time off to get healed. But when you're in optimum shape, and you take two or three days off, you got to get it back. And it's this week is a blessing for us because we can get back in the condition we were in.”

On Seton Hall’s performance tonight: “We know why we didn't play well, but you have to give Seton Hall a ton of credit. We knew what we were playing for tonight, but look at their record and to play that hard, that well, against the best team in the conference, speaks volumes for their ability.”

 

On what the Regular Season Championship means to St. John’s: “For St. John's, it's a special night. It's been 40 years for our student body. It's really, really special. Our university has done a tremendous job getting them back involved, and it's going to pay huge dividends down the road. Kids are going to want to come to St John's now because they're going to be part of our team again. So, we're excited. We need this week to get ready for a tough Marquette team, and we'll get back to the basics of being one of the best-conditioned teams in the nation.”

 

On the crowds at Madison Square Garden this season: “I've never seen it this good since I've been in coaching. We're so appreciative of our fans, our alumni, our subway alumni, and like I said earlier, for me, the students get behind the team because they are PHD: passionate, hungry and driven, and that's what our student body is all about.”

 

On Sadiku Ibine Ayo’s play over the past few games: “Well, you want everybody to have the attitude of Sadiku and Zuby [Ejiofor]. Obviously, everybody can't have that type of personality. That's God's gift: always being positive and always working hard. And it's a great gift to have, and he has it. I'm glad he's playing. He didn't play great defensively, but nobody did, but he did a lot of good things offensively.”

 

On RJ Luis Jr. and Zuby Ejiofor…

“You look at Zuby and RJ, they came back. So, they've been stars all year, the two of them, and they don't have up-and-down games because Zuby, if he may not shoot the ball well, he's going to get 10 or 11 rebounds. I'm proud of those two guys.”

 

On honoring Lou Carnesecca with a championship…

“Lou means a lot to a lot of people. I coached against him. He was the gentleman of gentlemen, a fierce competitor, great basketball coach. So, we're very proud of the fact that in the year that he passed, because he led a great life, we can honor him with this championship.”

 

On the progress the program has made in just two years, and if he feels like he's fulfilled a promise, or if it's just the start: “I think it's the beginning; I still have a lot of personal things I would like to accomplish in terms of players getting better. I am elated with the crowds. If you said to me at the beginning of the year, ‘Are you shocked that you won the Big East?’ No, I'm not shocked. I'm mildly surprised. If you said to me, ‘Are you shocked that you won 26 games?’ I'm mildly surprised. If you said to me that Madison Square Garden would be packed for four consecutive games, I’m very surprised because that takes a little bit of time. But that shows you how much effort the ticket people, the marketing people, the alumni, subway alumni, the student body wanted it, and I'm absolutely delighted, but I think we're just scratching the potential of St. John's...

"The next goal is to constantly improve the talent, constantly play with this desire and grit, constantly bring everybody in as teammates. We consider our fans teammates, we consider the students as part of our team. Selection Sunday, we were offered a great place, one of the best clubs in Manhattan, the great Zero Bond, offered us to have it there. That was so nice, of the owner of the place, we just said no, we've got to do it on campus because we want our lacrosse team to be there, we want our baseball team to be there, want some of the students to be there because they've been behind us for so long. We're doing great things right now; we're not going to embrace it, certainly, but we are going to enjoy it."