Since Mark Pope took over the Kentucky program, he has tried to get the St. John’s basketball team on his schedule and hit a road block each time until now.
The Red Storm will replace UCLA in the CBS Sports Classic and will face the Wildcats in December during the annual marquee event on the college basketball calendar. The official news of the Johnnies joining the showcase was first reported by the Eye On The Storm Podcast.
St. John’s is replacing UCLA, who made it very known about its displeasure with the high number of cross-country flights it had to endure this season after leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten.
UConn was also considered to fill the spot vacated by the Bruins.
The CBS Sports Classic will take place on December 20 this season in Atlanta and North Carolina and Ohio State will be the other matchup in the event. St. John’s is only slated to be in the event this season at the moment, but according to a source, the Red Storm are hoping to be invited back in 2026-27 when the venue is Madison Square Garden, and its opponent would be Ohio State.
St. John’s and Kentucky originally wanted to schedule a home-and-home series, beginning in Lexington during the 2025-26 season but talks fell apart when the Wildcats made it known it could not return the game in New York in 2026-27. They wanted to skip a year and play the Johnnies again in 2027-28, which didn’t work for the Red Storm.
As a consolation, the two sides began talks about an exhibition game in Lexington this fall as it marks the 30-year anniversary of Kentucky’s National Championship in 1996 led by head coach Rick Pitino and Mark Pope, the team’s captain.
The game marks yet another high-profile event that the Johnnies will participate in during the 2025-26 season, including the Players Era NIL Tournament in Las Vegas during November plus other elite non-conference games.
St. John’s is expected to be a preseason Top-10 team in the country after bringing in the consensus top ranked transfer portal class in the nation as well as the return of Zuby Ejiofor, a First Team All-Big East player and the conference’s Most Improved Player.