The St. John’s basketball team has achieved a feat it hasn’t seen in 33 years after it landed inside the Top-10 of the Associated Press Top-25 on Monday afternoon.
The Johnnies were tabbed No. 7 in the nation, rising from No. 10, its highest ranking since the 1991-92 season in which Lou Carnesecca was the head coach and ranked No. 7 on December 2, 19991.
Marquette, No. 21, is the only other Big East team that is ranked this week.
It’s the third straight week the Red Storm have been a Top-10 team, its longest streak since 1998-99, and has now been ranked for six straight weeks – which also matches that same ’98-99 squad for the most consecutive weeks of being ranked since they rattled off 16 weeks in a row.
Rick Pitino watched his team steamroll DePaul in Chicago this week while impressively defeating UConn at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon, sweeping the Huskies for the first time since the 1999-2000 season.
Its victory over rival UConn matched St. John’s (24-4, 15-2 Big East) most Big East victories in program history with the 1984-85 team, the last year the Johnnies won the outright regular season conference crown.
“This was the best offensive-defensive game we played all season,” Pitino said after the 89-75 victory. “They all buy into the defense, but on offense, they're all so different.”
“I'm real proud of them,” he added. “But it's the defense that turns into offense that makes us go.”
St. John’s magic number to win the Big East regular season championship is just two. Any combination of Red Storm victories and Creighton (19-8, 12-4 Big East) losses would clinch the feat.
The Johnnies can begin celebrating as early as Wednesday night (9:00 p.m. ET, CBS Sports Network) against Butler (13-14, 6-10 Big East) with a victory and a Bluejay loss in Omaha to DePaul (11-17, 2-15 Big East), although it seems unlikely.
St. John’s can turn its final home game of the regular season into a party on Saturday, March 1 (2:15 p.m. ET, CBS) against Seton Hall (7-20, 2-14 Big East) with the potential to win the Big East in front of a near capacity Madison Square Garden crowd.