St. John's basketball sings sea shanty during open of Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

It was going to be a big night for the St. John’s basketball program with its appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Each player was slated to be incorporated into the show and Rick Pitino would be interviewed by the popular light night talk show host but how the night began shocked everyone.

Typically, the NBC bells chime and a brief preview of the show will appear on air before Fallon’s theme song and monologue, but Thursday night was different. As soon as the late-night news on NBC in New York ended, the screen went dark only to be lit up with “ST. JOHN’S RED STORM” seconds later.

Fallon then broke into a sea shanty with the rest of the Johnnies as his backup singers and was joined by Pitino, wearing his white suit, at the front of the line towards the end of the song celebrating its first Big East regular season championship since 1985.

Rick Pitino would have an interview with Jimmy Fallon later in the show but nothing about the current team made it on air for the approximate 5-minute segment. Pitino told a story about a job interview he had with Jim Boeheim on the night of his wedding and having to cancel his honeymoon to recruit Louis Orr.

Fallon did show the viral clip from Pitino’s Vice TV series in which he ripped into his players at halftime before its buzzer beating victory on the road against Providence.

The Red Storm will be playing on the NBC airwaves during its first game of the Big East Tournament on Thursday, March 13 (12:00 p.m. ET, Peacock) against either Providence or Butler.

St. John’s, which has not played since last Saturday when clinching the conference title against Seton Hall, will return to the court on Saturday afternoon (12:00 p.m. ET, FOX) against No. 20 Marquette.