Unsurprisingly, the quote that reverberated around social media following UConn’s comfortable victory over Georgetown in the Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament semifinals on Friday night came from head coach Dan Hurley. He was asked to share his thoughts on an impending matchup with top-seeded St. John’s, an opponent with whom the Huskies split their regular season contests, and Hurley provided another trademark quip.
“It’s going to be a death match for the Big East championship,” Hurley said. “Both of us have really delivered for this league in a year where this league needs a game like tomorrow night.”
But once the ball was tipped in the conference tournament title game before a raucous crowd at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, only one team delivered the way it had all season: St. John’s. Led by head coach Rick Pitino, the top-seeded Red Storm brutalized second-seeded UConn for the better part of 40 minutes in a physically dominant showing that ended as a wire-to-wire 72-52 thumping for the Big East Tournament victory. A double-digit halftime lead for St. John’s never shrunk below seven, even amid a brief Huskies’ surge, and quickly ballooned north of 20 in the closing stages.
The Red Storm have now won the men’s Big East Tournament title in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1985-86.
Here are my takeaways:
1. St. John’s controls the Big East despite UConn’s national titles
When push comes to shove, the Huskies will gladly point to their two national championships during Hurley’s tenure as worthwhile trade-offs for some disappointing results in the conference. Back-to-back triumphs on the sport’s biggest stage in 2023 and 2024 gave UConn six national titles in program history, tied with North Carolina for third all-time behind UCLA (11) and Kentucky (8).
What’s also unquestionable, though, is the dominance St. John’s has summoned on a conference level during this remarkable three-year run under Pitino, who continues to do what he’s always done across a highly decorated career: win. As far as the Big East goes, the Red Storm have now secured back-to-back regular season titles and back-to-back conference tournament titles while only dropping four league games over those two campaigns combined. An 18-2 regular season during the 2024-25 season gave way to an identical 18-2 regular season mark this year, both of which ended with clean sweeps at Madison Square Garden in March.
In assembling rosters flush with positional size, unwavering toughness and years upon years of collegiate experience, Pitino has found an ideal elixir for success in the ruggedly officiated Big East. And he’s now presiding over a level of conference dominance that even the Huskies couldn’t match while winning those two national titles under Hurley. Sure, the UConn team from 2023-24 proved itself a legitimate juggernaut by winning 28 regular season games and blowing out six consecutive opponents in the NCAA Tournament. But Hurley’s two championship-winning teams also dropped nine combined Big East games during their reign.
The next step for Pitino during his reconstruction of St. John’s is to parlay such incredible regular season success into a lengthy NCAA Tournament run. Last year’s team, a 2-seed, stumbled in the second round against 10th-seeded Arkansas on a night when poor perimeter shooting finally undid the Red Storm. The program still hasn’t reached the Sweet 16 since 1999.
2. Ferocious St. John’s defense smothers high-powered UConn offense
Zuby Ejiofor celebrates with Sadiku Ibine Ayo (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
When Red Storm center Zuby Ejiofor, the freshly crowned Big East Player of the Year, scored on a half-hook midway through the second half, he made a gesture to suggest that UConn big man Tarris Reed Jr. was too small to defend him on the way back down the floor, holding one hand a few inches above the hardwood. And while it was an offensive basket that prompted Ejiofor to unfurl his momentary taunt, the wide-ranging nature of his impact on Saturday’s game meant it could have applied to both ends of the floor.
For the better part of 40 minutes, Ejiofor had gone chest to chest with Reed in what was arguably the conference’s most intriguing matchup all season. He scored 18 points while making seven of his 11 shots in a highly efficient offensive performance, but it’s what Ejiofor did on defense that spearheaded the Red Storm’s thorough blanketing of UConn, a team with an offense that ranked 26th nationally in efficiency at tip-off. Ejiofor, who also grabbed nine rebounds, set a Big East Tournament title game record with seven blocked shots to repeatedly dissuade, deter and deject nearly every Husky who entered the paint.
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Such an imposing presence around the basket allowed the Red Storm’s other defenders to play feisty, handsy defense in all areas of the court. Pitino’s group forced UConn into 17 turnovers, 10 of which St. John’s ripped away as steals, and transformed those mistakes into 24 points. Five different players tallied at least one steal, including two players — Ejiofor and point guard Dylan Darling — who notched three apiece.
The Red Storm limited Huskies’ sharpshooters Braylon Mullins and Solo Ball to just eight combined points on three field goals by blanketing the 3-point line, knowing Ejiofor was always there behind them.
St. John’s point guard Dylan Darling attempts to steal the ball from UConn’s Silas Demary Jr. during the 2026 Big East Men’s Tournament Championship game. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
3. St. John’s responds with early haymaker after ugly loss at UConn
When these two teams met at PeoplesBank Arena three weeks ago, the post-game scenes were ugly for St. John’s.
Having suffered what was unquestionably his worst loss since taking over the program — a 72-40 defeat in which the Red Storm missed their final 24 field goal attempts — Pitino declined to participate in a traditional news conference, choosing instead to speak for roughly 75 seconds outside the visiting locker room. Then he snapped at a St. John’s staffer loudly enough for the swarm of reporters to hear. Then an interview with Ejiofor, the Red Storm’s captain, was delayed because he needed stitches for a busted lip.
Such post-game dysfunction was in keeping with the unsightly mess St. John’s had put forth on the court: a performance so shocking that it was fair to wonder how long it might linger. But the answer, as it turned out, was devoid of any lingering at all. Pitino rallied his team in time to win a second consecutive Big East regular season title, with the Red Storm reeling off six consecutive wins ever since. And in the early moments of Saturday’s rubber match against UConn, there was nothing to suggest St. John’s harbored any fear of the Huskies.
Fueled by an opportunity to atone for the embarrassment in Hartford, the Red Storm seized control almost immediately. An emphatic 10-0 spurt to begin the evening — commonly referred to as a “kill shot” in the analytics world — decidedly swung momentum toward St. John’s before the Huskies seemed to recognize the game had begun. Banshee-like effort from Ejiofor, power forward Dillon Mitchell and Darling, an unsung hero when Pitino’s squad defeated UConn in the same building earlier this season, overwhelmed a Huskies’ team that coasted through wins over Xavier and Georgetown by 41 combined points.
More than four minutes elapsed before UConn manufactured its first point. And by the 12:34 mark, with the St. John’s lead still in double figures, Hurley received a technical foul for arguing with the referees. His team retreated to the locker room down 40-27 at the break after trailing by as many as 17 points.
4. Another lackluster effort from UConn with a championship at stake
UConn’s Tarris Reed Jr. goes to the basket as St. John’s players Bryce Hopkins and Zuby Ejiofor defend during the 2026 Big East Men’s Tournament Championship game. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Exactly one week ago, the Huskies entered Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee needing only to beat lowly Marquette to secure a share of the Big East regular-season title. And though Shaka Smart is still the highly successful head coach of the Golden Eagles, this year’s group was anything but one of his vintage teams. By that point, Marquette had already lost 19 games after dropping just 21 over the previous two campaigns. It should have been a routine win for then-No. 4 UConn.
Instead, the Huskies imploded. They made only three of 24 attempts from behind the arc, turned the ball over 16 times and allowed the Golden Eagles to shoot 48% from the field in an eventual 68-62 defeat that handed St. John’s an outright league title. Hurley was so incensed in the waning seconds that he got ejected and fined $25,000.
It meant that part of the narrative surrounding UConn during this week’s Big East Tournament revolved around redemption — the idea that the Huskies were left crestfallen by their effort against Marquette and would channel that frustration at Madison Square Garden. And that largely happened across comprehensive victories in the quarterfinals and semifinals, with Hurley and his team resembling the postseason juggernaut fans have come to expect in recent years. They entered the title game against St. John’s playing their best basketball in weeks.
Which is why, both now and in the long run, it’s quite concerning that the Huskies tripped over themselves in a second consecutive pressure-packed setting. How will they respond in the Big Dance?
4½. What’s next?
(Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
A stunning loss by Florida earlier on Saturday afternoon sent a shock wave across the top of the sport. That the Gators were clobbered, 91-74, by Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament semifinals cleared a potential path for UConn to potentially reach the top line come Selection Sunday — assuming the Huskies could beat St. John’s. But UConn promptly squandered that opportunity and will almost certainly receive a 2-seed when the bracket is revealed.
The Red Storm, meanwhile, should benefit significantly from another high-profile victory in a campaign mostly devoid of them. Non-conference losses to then-No. 15 Alabama, then-No. 15 Iowa State, then-No. 21 Auburn and Kentucky all came before Pitino molded his group into the cohesive unit that romped through the Big East. Two victories over UConn — one in February, one on Saturday night — are unquestionably the team’s best wins.
FOX Sports’ bracketologist Mike DeCourcy projected St. John’s as a 4-seed prior to beating the Huskies a second time. Perhaps this latest marquee result can move the Red Storm up a line.
