It was never going to be easy, but the St. John’s basketball team got the job done.
For the first time since the 1985 and 1986 seasons, the No. 18 Red Storm have won back-to-back Big East regular season championships with its 72-65 win over Seton Hall.
The victory secured at least a share of the title, which could turn into the outright championship if Marquette defeats No. 6 UConn on Saturday afternoon.
St. John’s (25-6, 18-2 Big East) never trailed in the second half, but the Pirates pushed the Johnnies to the brink, cutting the once nine-point lead to one on three separate occasions but could never get over the hump.
A 12-2 run by the Storm landed its largest lead of the game, 62-51, behind an Oziyah Sellers 3-pointer with 4:07 remaining and it was enough to get to the finish line.
“The Big East Tournament is a lot of fun, but the regular season means the most,” Rick Pitino said after the win. “Because that’s your body of work for the entire year.”
Sellers hit three triples in the second half to finish with 11 points in the win while Zuby Ejiofor led the way with 21 points.
Seton Hall (20-11, 10-10 Big East) made its first 3-pointer of the game with 47.3 seconds left that brought the Pirates within three, 66-63, before Ejiofor stepped to the free throw line to push the lead back to two possessions.
“It’s not easy,” Ejiofor explained of winning back-to-back titles. “It takes everybody committed to one main goal in winning and I think we did a really special thing tonight.”
A tip-in by Josh Rivera brought the margin back to three before Ejiofor found Dillon Mitchell for a layup with 14.6 left that put the game away.
Mitchell ended the night with six points, seven rebounds, and seven assists while Dylan Darling was indispensable nine points and five assists.
“It feels super good,” Darling said about the feeling of winning a Big East championship. “It feels awesome, it’s super fulfilling because this didn’t start in November, it started back in June with summer workouts with these guys and it’s just super fulfilling that the hard work is paying off with this group.”
To start, the game it was an offensive struggle as expected. The Red Storm were 2-for-11 from 3-point range and 11-of-29 (37.9-percent) from the field but Seton Hall couldn’t find its touch, missing all five 3-pointers
St. John’s won’t play again until 12:00 p.m. ET (Peacock) on Thursday afternoon in the Big East Tournament Quarterfinals against an opponent that won’t be determined until the bracket is finalized on Saturday night.