A year after experiencing a Sunday breakup of choice, St. John's accidentally left nothing.
The Big East regular season and tournament champion headed to the NCAA Tournament as the second-place seed in the Western Region, winning the 15th Omaha and first-round matchups at Providence, Roadley on Thursday.
Johnny (30-4) ran roughshod the Big East Tournament field and was waiting around Sunday as he finished Saturday night and joked that other teams played and joked for the coveted top two seed. They gathered on campus and watched the selection show with the peace of mind of automatic bidding.
St. John's was removed from the March insanity in 2024, but his six-game winning streak in the second half of the season earned 20 wins, pushing defending and ultimate repetition to limit domestic champion UConn in the Big East Tournament semi-finals. Snub has been torched by head coach Rick Pitino's net ranking tool.
The net was no good again (13th of the teams ranked 6th in the Associated Press vote).
But this season was an eyeball test for an explosive moment when the Red Storm was connected with 14 straight field goals to turn the competitive Big East Final into a punk. In fact, players are thinking of bigger goals, like national championships.
“That's not a dream anymore,” Big East Player of the Year RJ Lewis Jr. recently told the post. “It's like something achievable, and now you're thinking about the possibility of actually doing it. Compared to last year, we were just dreaming.
The Red Storm's four losses – the loss to Baylor, Georgia, Clayton and Villanova scored a total of seven points. After the calendar is 2025, only one came.
St. John's won his first Big East regular season title since 1985 and at the helm of his first tournament crown since 2000 in Just Pitino's second season. Pitino became the first head coach to lead six different teams to the NCAA Tournaments (Boston, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona and St. John's).
The Luis trio, the Big East's most improved players Zuby Ejiofor and Kadary Richmond, are also the team's top three rebounders, with Playmaking Richmond flirting with multiple triple doubles during the hot streaks later in the season.
The biggest obstacle to the road to deep running is hitting an unfamiliar, sharp shooting team running the score behind the 3-point arc and at the free throw line.
St. John's shot 29.9% from downtown and 68.8% from the strip during the regular season. These are my favorite favourite weaknesses against Cinderella for many years in the NCAA Tournament.
The No. 2 seed marks St. John's best since 2000 when the Eric Berkeley-driven team was upset by Gonzaga in their childhood to superpowers. A year ago, as No. 3, St. John's arrived at the Elite 8, winning once in the shy moments of his first last four trips since 1985.
