Despite the presence of Rick Pitino and his success with the St. John’s basketball program in three seasons, it still feels strange that the Red Storm’s dominating at the Big East Tournament is becoming a common occurrence.
After a 13-point win over Providence in the quarterfinals, the top-seeded Johnnies dumped No. 4 seed Seton Hall 78-68 to advance to Saturday night’s championship game.
It’s the first time the Red Storm have played in back-to-back title games since 1999 and 2000 while its five-game winning streak in the conference tournament, dating back to last year, is a program record.
Its average margin of victory in the winning streak is 15.2 points per game.
On this night, as usual, it was Zuby Ejiofor who set the tone for the Johnnies with 20 points, five rebounds, two assists, two blocks, and a steal as he continues to solidify the choice to name him as the unanimous Big East Player of the Year.
St. John’s (27-6) asserted its dominance inside by scoring its first 20 points of the game in the paint, then it got hot from 3-point range.
“We're playing good basketball right now,” Pitino explained. “I've been impressed so many segments of this season with the way we responded after Connecticut for Villanova, the way we responded at Seton Hall, to get that victory with a lot on the line, and the way we responded tonight.”
After missing its opening five shots from deep, Joson Sanon checked in and got hot quickly. He made his first attempt, which would turn into a spurt of 3-for-4 including a 4-point play. He finished with 15 points in the victory.
“When I come off the bench, I told [Kelvin Odih], ‘We need some threes’, and when Coach put me in, I did my thing,” Sanon said.
“Can you tell me that before I put you in?” Pitino interjected. “Just nudge me and say, ‘Coach, I'm ready for threes.’”
After an 8-0 run to begin the game, Red Storm’s lead grew to as many as 13 points towards the end of the first half before leading by eight, 38-30, at halftime. An 11-0 run to start the second half pushed the lead to 19 points, its largest of the game.
St. John’s maintained its 19-point lead with 9:56 to go but a 20-7 run got Seton Hall (21-12) within six and Madison Square Garden behind the Pirates. To counter, the Red Storm went back to Ejiofor for a layup with 0.3 remaining on the shot clock to start a 7-0 run that iced the game.
“We bent a little bit down the stretch after playing great basketball, but we never broke,” Pitino said.
The Johnnies will play either UConn or Georgetown on Saturday night (6:30 p.m. ET, FOX) in the Big East Championship Game. The Huskies forced St. John’s to miss 24 straight shots to the game in a 32-point victory the last time the teams met.