The St. John’s basketball record books have been rewritten over the last three seasons under Rick Pitino, and the Johnnies are looking to add one more major accomplishment, winning back-to-back Big East Tournaments.
It’s something that has never been done before in program history, similarly to the Red Storm winning outright Big East regular season championships in two straight seasons.
The message has been shared in the St. John’s locker room as Rick Pitino showed his team a six-minute video of last year’s championship run at Madison Square Garden, which included its celebration after winning the title.
“Guys want to feel that moment of winning another championship, especially a championship at MSG,” Zuby Ejiofor said.
“That would probably be going out in the best way possible,” he added of winning another conference tournament in his final collegiate season. “Getting the opportunity to win back-to-back regular season and back-to-back Big East Tournaments, I want it bad.”
St. John’s closed the regular season by winning 16-of-17 games en route to its title.
In practice on Tuesday, it’s reserves beat the starters in a controlled scrimmage and the message from Pitino was clear.
“The lesson is that you guys can get beat any night,” he told his team.
The biggest key for St. John’s success in the postseason, as the Hall of Famer said a few weeks ago, is its backcourt. Recently, Dylan Darling has reentered the starting lineup after an ankle injury to Ian Jackson while Joson Sanon has elevated his play in the final week of the season.
“Dylan Darling has emerged as a quality backcourt player,” Pitino explained. “It’s not the same backcourt that played against Alabama and Auburn.”
Still, the Johnnies will rely on its frontcourt trio of Zuby Ejiofor, Dillon Mitchell, and Bryce Hopkins for most of its production.
St. John’s will play the winner of Butler and Providence on Thursday afternoon (12:00 p.m. ET, Peacock).