The pressure of playing for a championship is a privilege and the St. John’s basketball team is embracing it entering the season finale against Seton Hall.
A win on Friday night for the No. 18 Johnnies earns at least a share of the Big East regular season title as well as the No. 1 seed in next week’s Big East Tournament. It would mark the first time the program won back-to-back conference titles since 1985 and 1986.
“I think that’s all we preach in the locker room right now,” Sadiku Ibine Ayo explained on Thursday. “Because you have a great chance and you’re blessed to go back-to-back. Why not?”
“It’s something that we’ve spoken about it [Wednesday] in practice and in the locker room, trying to get that in the guys’ head that we’re winning the championship.”
Ibine Ayo is gunning for his third conference championship in the last four seasons with Rick Pitino, dating back to his freshman year at Iona.
“I’m blessed to be able to win at every level and I’m very grateful to call myself a winner,” he said. “That’s what I’m telling all the young guys in practice that we get a chance to win a championship; we should do it.”
The Red Storm won the outright regular season championship last season against the Pirates, but it wasn’t easy and its first matchup this year was a dogfight after Seton Hall took a 15-point lead early in the second half before the Red Storm’s comeback.
“They’re one of the best defensive teams in the country,” Ibine Ayo added about the challenges of playing Seton Hall. “They play really had every single possession…When you play a team like that, you got to be really locked in.”
The expectation is that the Red Storm will be foaming from the mouth after its week of practice following the win over Georgetown which hasn’t sat well with Rick Pitino.
The Hall of Famer expressed his frustration with the relaxed mindset of his team after the game and has treated the outcome like a loss this week.
“A lot of our wins are treated like losses,” Dylan Darling said. “It’s not just Georgetown. I would say over half of our wins are treated like losses, so it’s nothing new that we’re not used to.”
“[Pitino] wants domination from the time the ball is tipped until the end, until the last buzzer sounds,” he added. “He wants pure domination and anything less than that, he’s not happy with.”
Still, the Red Storm know what it at stake beyond the messaging from its head coach from all aspects – a conference title and the top seed in the tournament.
“Anytime you can win the league in whatever league you’re in, that’s a pretty special thing,” Darling explained. “To be able to finish in the Big East at 18-2, that’s really hard to do. That would be a testimony to everybody involved in this thing, and it would be really special and really cool.”
Darling, along with many of his teammates, have never won a conference championship before and a win would be the crowning achievement on their careers entering the postseason.
St. John’s has won four straight games against Seton Hall, its longest winning streak against its rival since winning 15 straight games from 1982-88, It’s 28-point win in the Prudential Center last season was its first win on the Pirates’ home floor since 2014.