NEW YORK (AP) — Sixth-ranked UConn and No. 13 St. John’s are ready for the rubber match. This time, with a Big East championship at stake.
After dominating conference play and splitting their two regular-season matchups, the original league rivals are poised to square off again in a highly anticipated tournament title game.
Neither team has trailed through two rounds in New York City this week.
“Two of the better teams in college basketball — Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. You can’t ask for much more,” Red Storm guard Dylan Darling said.
And with all due respect to the rest of the conference, it felt inevitable all along.
“You knew there was going to be a third round, and here we are,” Huskies coach Dan Hurley said.
Defending champion St. John’s was picked atop the preseason coaches’ poll, UConn placed second — and no other school received a first-place vote.
The first time they met this season, Big East Player of the Year Zuby Ejiofor had 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists as the Johnnies won 81-72 on Feb. 6 before a roaring crowd at The Garden, ending an 18-game winning streak for the Huskies.
Less than three weeks later, a fired-up and determined UConn squad answered at home with a 72-40 blowout that stopped the Red Storm’s 13-game winning streak. St. John’s shot an embarrassing 20% from the floor, missing its last 24 field goal attempts over the final 17:27 as the Huskies romped to their most- lopsided victory in series history.
“I thought we demoralized them a little bit,” Hurley said afterward.
It was by far the largest defeat for the Johnnies in three seasons under Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino, and their fewest points in a game since a 66-40 loss at Notre Dame in March 2013.
Tarris Reed Jr. had 20 points, 11 rebounds and six blocks for UConn, outplaying Ejiofor badly in their matchup of All-Big East big men.
After that, the teams remained neck-and-neck for first place until the Huskies lost 68-62 at struggling Marquette last weekend, costing them a share of the regular-season crown that instead went solely to St. John’s by one game at 18-2.
Hurley, ejected in the final second and fined $25,000 by the Big East for unsportsmanlike conduct, said Thursday his team blew that game and called it a “choke job.”
“Both programs have really pushed each other the whole year. We’re a 29-win team. They’re a 27-win team. Two of the best teams in the country,” Hurley said. “Obviously, it’s going to be a death match for the Big East championship. But both of us have really delivered for this league. This league needs a game like this that everyone that’s a basketball fan’s going to be dialed into.”
Although the Huskies are the perennial national power with six NCAA championships since 1999, it’s the Johnnies who have taken over the neighborhood lately under Pitino with last year’s Big East Tournament championship and consecutive outright regular-season titles.
“These guys, what they don’t understand because they’re young, they’re very proud of their accomplishments, but what they don’t realize is that St. John’s in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s dominated the East Coast. It was a dominant basketball team,” the 73-year-old Pitino said. “And then they went into hibernation like a bear for a while, and then these guys got ’em out of hibernation.”
St. John’s has taken the Big East Tournament four times, never in back-to-back seasons. Ejiofor and the Johnnies have won all five of their games in this event by double digits the past two years — but none of those games were against the Huskies.
“We understand what we’re chasing,” Ejiofor said.
UConn won in 2024 on the way to its second straight national championship and is looking for its ninth Big East Tournament title, which would break a tie with Georgetown for the most of any program.
And after going 1-3 against St. John’s the past two seasons, the proud Huskies undoubtedly want this one badly Saturday night.
“It’ll be World War III on the backboards,” Hurley said. “Somebody’s walking out the tunnel with nothing. Somebody’s having confetti dropped on them.”
Top-seeded St. John’s (27-6) advanced with an 85-72 quarterfinal win Thursday over No. 9 seed Providence and a 78-68 victory Friday in the first semifinal against fourth-seeded Seton Hall.
UConn (29-4) topped No. 10 seed Xavier 93-68 and 11th-seeded Georgetown 67-51.
It’s the first time the championship game features two of the conference’s seven charter members since St. John’s beat UConn 80-70 in 2000.
The top seed has won the Big East Tournament three years in a row.
“For us new guys who weren’t part of the team last year, we want it just as bad,” Red Storm forward Dillon Mitchell said. “We have the same type of chip on our shoulder like we’re defending it.”
___
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP mobile app). AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball
Ben Kriesant