In previous encounters this season, the games between Connecticut and St. John’s were anything but close.
In their initial clash, the Red Storm overwhelmed the six-time national champions with relentless defense, securing a nine-point victory. Not long after, UConn exacted its revenge in Hartford, stifling St. John’s so effectively that they shot a mere 20 percent and failed to score on their last 24 attempts.
With such a backdrop, the anticipation for the Big East Championship game suggested a nail-biting finale fit for the iconic Madison Square Garden.
These performances, however, raise questions about the Huskies’ prospects in the NCAA Tournament. Despite amassing 29 victories, their struggle to maintain consistent form might make them vulnerable to an early exit.
Yet, the spotlight on this night was firmly on Rick Pitino and his Red Storm. With a commanding performance, St. John’s achieved a historic milestone, becoming the first team in Big East history to clinch both the regular season and tournament titles in back-to-back years.
St. John’s star Zuby Ejiofor celebrates winning his second Big East Championship crown
St. John’s dominated UConn from the beginning to win back-to-back Big East titles
Coach Rick Pitino’s team is the first in conference history to win consecutive double titles
The excitement for this decisive matchup began building far from Madison Square Garden, originating over 75 miles away at Union Station in New Haven, Connecticut.
Along the way, at each train stop on the southbound New Haven Line, fans of both the Huskies and the Johnnies boarded – traveling full steam ahead to New York City and a grudge match two years in the making.
Madison Square Garden may be at its most feral when the Big East Championship game rolls in. College basketball is an inherently tribal and territorial sport, so when over 19,000 pack the walls of the World’s Most Famous Arena for a contest like this, the noise is palpable and, at times, physically painful.
Saturday was no exception. Dueling ‘Let’s Go Johnnies’ and ‘Let’s Go Huskies’ chants before the national anthem began set the stage, as did the choice of walkout music: Biggie Smalls’ ‘Hypnotize’ for UConn, Tupac’s ‘California Love’ for St. John’s.
Then tipoff came. Control of the glass and the paint was going to be the key to victory for either team and in the first half, St. John’s star and eventual Most Outstanding Player Zuby Ejiofor bullied UConn’s Tarris Reed down low for the entire night.
UConn didn’t just look out of sorts in the first half, they looked outright overwhelmed and fell into a deep hole they had no reasonable chance of fully climbing out of. Late in the opening 20 minutes, they turned the ball over off an inbound pass twice – leading to St. John’s points.
Early in the game, referee James Breeding hit Hurley with a technical foul just over a week after the Connecticut coach was ejected for berating another official.
In the first half, the Huskies shot 36 percent, allowed St. John’s to hit exactly half their shots, committed 11 turnovers and let the Johnnies score 15 points off those cough-ups. In a way, it was a miracle that UConn was only down 13 at that point.
UConn coach Dan Hurley was given a technical foul early in the game
Pitino’s team overwhelmed Connecticut from the opening tip to the very end
An attempt at a turnaround took effect by the first media timeout of the second half when Connecticut rode a 7-0 run to cut the game closer.
That became a 13-2 run, forcing Pitino to call timeout at 12:14 when the Huskies cut the deficit to seven.
But the Johnnies’ coach perfectly executed that timeout, sapping all UConn momentum, before his team put up an 11-3 run with a punctuating dunk by Dillon Mitchell to make it 58-45.
The entire course of the game could essentially have been embodied in that one run. St. John’s would lead, the Huskies would claw back a little bit, something would happen to halt their positivity, the Red Storm would score again.
Rinse, repeat. The Huskies were never truly in the game. By the time the final buzzer sounded, UConn committed an unthinkable 17 turnovers and didn’t hit a single shot in the final 8:03 of the contest.
Throughout the Big East Tournament, the Huskies talked about playing with more joy after a loss to Marquette. After the defeat, the UConn locker room was as silent as a morgue.
Asked by Daily Mail how he could recapture that joy, Hurley said, ‘[Now] it’s like a new season, really. As important as it is to win your regular season, it’s as important to win your tournament, you know. Unfortunately for this business, you could do all those things, but if you have a bad NCAA tournament, it’s cruel.’
He added, ‘We’ve had a great season, 29-5. We just haven’t had a championship season. And now for us, we’ve got to try to atone for what we didn’t get by just having a great NCAA tournament, making a run.’
Rick Pitino hugs forward Dillon Mitchell as the Red Storm counted down to their victory
Meanwhile, a beaming Pitino praised his cast of players for reaching the mountaintop again.
‘There’s so much history with St. John’s and we brought it all back within three years,’ Pitino told reporters after the win.
To come back from such a devastating loss in Hartford to now, lifting a trophy at center court at Madison Square Garden, fans may have believed that revenge was a motivating factor in what proved to be the ultimate dead rubber match.
‘We never mentioned revenge because we have so much respect for Connecticut,’ Pitino said. ‘We just talked about championship. This is the championship.
‘It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, it’s a championship at stake. You guys get a chance to be a part of history. It’s a championship. It’s another night to get better and improve. And we did. We improved every single game and we got better.’
