UConn and St. John’s Are Ready To Rumble Again

The Johnnies currently sit atop the league at 15-1. A victory would all but ensure that Rick Pitino’s team will claim a second straight outright regular-season title, barring a total collapse. A loss would place UConn, which is half a game back at 15-2, in the driver’s seat to either share or fully retake the crown.

“It would mean everything,” St. John’s senior Bryce Hopkins, a 6-foot-7 forward, said of a conference title on Tuesday. “That was our goal at the start of the season, and we’re in a good position right now. We have a few more games that we have to lock into the scouting reports and not take lightly. We have a big game coming up tomorrow against UConn — that’s going to be a big game to figure out who’s probably going to win the conference. It’s going to mean a lot to me to win the Big East. I haven’t done it yet, and I hope this year is going to be the year.” 

With March around the corner, both programs are also jostling for better NCAA Tournament positions. As committee chair Keith Gill shared during the reveal of the top 16 seeds on Saturday, UConn was on the one-line prior to its crushing 91-84 loss to Creighton a week ago. The 25-3 Huskies dropped to a No. 2, trailing Michigan, Duke, Arizona and Iowa State. Meanwhile, the 22-5 Red Storm were left off the list entirely. That could very well change if they’re able to beat UConn again, but Pitino has insisted he’s unconcerned about seeding.  

“I went to the Final Four as a six-seed (at Louisville),” he said. “As crazy as it may seem, I really don’t look at these things at all. I know everybody does in the media, but I really don’t care about any of it. I just want to make the Tournament. I don’t care what seed we are, where we go, who we play. When we won the national championship, I think we were in Seattle. I really don’t care about those things. I just want to continue to play great basketball the way we’re playing right now. That’s the most important thing to me.”

St. John’s enters Wednesday’s showdown on a 13-game winning streak, the program’s longest since the 1984-85 campaign and the best among high-major teams. It cruised to an emphatic 81-52 victory over Creighton on Saturday, forcing 18 turnovers and holding the Bluejays to 32 percent shooting. “This was the best defense we’ve played all season,” Pitino said afterward. It was the largest blowout by the Johnnies in a Big East game since a 91-57 rout of Butler in February 2022, and they didn’t even have 6-foot-5 sophomore guard Ian Jackson (10.4 points per game), who was sidelined by an ankle injury. Jackson is available against UConn, but not expected to start. 

After a shaky few weeks, Dan Hurley’s team got a much-needed 73-63 win at Villanova over the weekend, improving to 8-2 in Quad 1 matchups. Six different players scored eight or more points, led by 6-foot-8 senior forward Alex Karaban with 12. The Huskies were dominant defensively, as the Wildcats, who have the nation’s No. 32 offense (per KenPom), shot just 40.7 percent from the field and 25.0 percent from three. “We were a top-five defensive team pretty much until that St. John’s game at the Garden,” Hurley said postgame. “And then we just went into a bad stretch. Sometimes you have bad stretches defensively, not just offensively. You get away from your identity. We got back to our identity tonight.”

Wednesday’s game is likely to be a classic Big East defensive battle. With both teams improving on that end, UConn now ranks twelfth in adjusted defensive efficiency and St. John’s is up to fifteenth.

In their first meeting, St. John’s was the clear aggressor, feeding off of a raucous MSG crowd. The Huskies shot the ball well, but the Red Storm had the rebounding edge (32-26), attempted 19 more free throws and wreaked havoc with their full-court pressure defense. UConn star Silas Demary Jr., a 6-foot-4 junior guard, turned the ball over a season-high nine times.

“I feel like they’re definitely going to come with some different looks towards us,” Hopkins said. “They’re probably going to be more aggressive. They’re playing at home, so there’s going to be a lot more energy in the building.”

“For us, it’s about playing really, really hard. It’s about, when a shot goes up, hitting first rather than getting hit,” Hurley said Tuesday. “You have to be able to fight through contact. You have to be able to fight through being held. And you have to be able to fight when the ball goes up on the backboard. Because everything is a fight with them.”

The Johnnies’ frontcourt — Hopkins, 6-foot-8 senior forward Dillon Mitchell and 6-foot-9 senior forward Zuby Ejiofor — was especially imposing in the Feb. 6 matchup. Ejiofor had arguably his best performance of the year, posting 21 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 blocks and 2 steals. 

Since Pitino inserted Mitchell into the starting lineup on Jan. 6, St. John’s has gone undefeated. Hopkins has scored in double figures in all but two games amid that stretch, while Ejiofor has played like an All-American. 

St. John’s is anticipating that the Huskies will go bigger on Wednesday to try to contain that elite trio. For UConn to get the victory, it’s crucial that 6-foot-11 senior center Tarris Reed Jr. and Karaban stay out of foul trouble. When the Huskies have outrebounded opponents this season, they are 19-0. 

The X-factor for the Red Storm throughout their rise has been 6-foot-1 junior point guard Dylan Darling, who’s led the team in scoring in two of the past three games and made clutch plays in several close wins. Hurley thought Darling was the difference in the contest at MSG, as the Idaho State transfer knocked down a few big shots and was disruptive on defense. “That guy is tough as nails. Just a clutch performer,” Hurley said. “We have to be better prepared to take away the things that he wants to do well.”

To match the production of Darling and other key pieces off the Johnnies’ bench, UConn’s second unit will need to step up as it did against the Wildcats, when it contributed 22 points on 7 of 11 shooting. Freshman Eric Reibe, a 7-foot-1 center, was a force in the paint, while 6-foot-7 junior forward Jaylin Stewart knocked down a pair of three-pointers. The reserves had been struggling recently, including in the loss to St. John’s. “When we were at our best this year, it was the strength in numbers thing, with Jaylin, (Jayden) Ross, Eric and Malachi (Smith) all impacting the game,” Hurley said. “Those guys have to play the way that they did. J-Ross’ impact on defense. Jaylin Stewart made some big shots. Malachi got to the rim, made plays. Eric was really good. They do that, they’re going to play and help the team.”

As with most rivalries, when these foes meet, anything can happen. The Red Storm have won three straight in the series, but they are just 1-7 in games at Hartford since the 1988-89 campaign.

“Our motto from the beginning of the year has been to get better every day and play every game the same,” Pitino said. “It’s been that way. It’s worked for us. The team believes in it. So that’s the way we’re approaching it.”