NEW YORK — Zuby Ejiofor totaled 18 points, nine rebounds, seven blocks and three steals as top-seeded St. John’s started quickly, never let up and earned a 72-52 victory over second-seeded UConn on Saturday night to win the Big East tournament title.
Projected to be a fifth seed in the NCAA Tournament by many bracketologists, the Red Storm (28-6) won their fifth conference tournament title and achieved the feat in consecutive seasons for the first time in school history.
“We’ve had a target on our backs and we had to battle through adversity all season,” said Ejiofor, the Big East Player of the Year. “Nobody believed that we could get to this moment but us. Everybody in the locker room and these guys, they earned it. They earned it. This is what they came here for, and we accomplished a few of the goals that we set out to do.”
St. John’s, ranked No. 13 in the nation, also became the first school to go back-to-back as Big East tournament champions since Villanova won three straight from 2017-19.
The Red Storm won for the 19th time in 20 games since a six-point home loss to Providence on Jan. 3. Their lone loss in that span was a 72-40 thrashing by UConn in Hartford on Feb. 25.
“We never mentioned revenge because we have so much respect for Connecticut,” St. John’s coach Rick Pitino said. “We just talked about (winning the Big East) 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.”
Ejiofor, voted the tournament’s most outstanding player, made 7 of 11 shots and hit a pair of 3s on Saturday. He finished one shy of his career high for blocks set Dec. 6 against Ole Miss and matched in the next game on Dec. 13 against Iona.
“The point production, the rebounding production, the havoc he causes on defense, the relentlessness that he plays with, and then just him as a leader of that team, just his personality,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said of Ejiofor. “The rage that he plays with, the fire that he plays with, that guy’s just a total butt kicker. He’s one of the handful of best players I’ve ever coached against in college.”
Bryce Hopkins also scored 18 and Oziyah Sellers contributed 14 for the Red Storm, who scored the game’s first 10 points. St. John’s scored the first nine points in a quarterfinal win over Providence on Thursday and the first eight in the semifinal win over Seton Hall on Friday.
“We had to set the tone early against UConn because they’re such a great program,” Ejiofor said. “So we set the tone early like we did pretty much all tournament, but we had to be resilient to come out with a win like this and these guys did that.”
The Red Storm shot 48.2% from the field (27 of 56) and scored 24 points off turnovers.
“They just really jumped us to start the game,” Hurley said. “I think we knew that it would be a very forceful response from them and we just weren’t able to match it. We weren’t able to finish some things around the basket and just kind of settle into the game. And then just playing catchup was an issue.”
No. 6 UConn (29-5) was unable to win its ninth conference title and ended the game by getting outscored 13-3 and missing its last 13 field-goal attempts over the final eight minutes.
Tarris Reed Jr. led the Huskies with 17 points on 8-of-17 shooting but was constantly bottled up by Ejiofor in the paint. Reed was UConn’s lone double-figure scorer as the Huskies shot a season-worst 33.9% (19 of 56), missed 16 of 19 3-pointers and committed 17 turnovers.
“Zuby did a great job of staying out of foul trouble, and we took away the 3-point shot by doing that and that’s what we wanted to do,” Pitino said. “It wasn’t so much that we were trying to stop (Reed), it was we wanted to take away the 3-point line.”
Leading scorer Solo Ball was held to three points on 1-of-7 shooting while Alex Karaban finished with seven and Silas Demary Jr. had six.
After a basket by Erik Reibe made it a nine-point game with 9:58 left in the first half, the Red Storm ripped off an 11-3 run that featured dunks by Ejiofor and Dillon Mitchell for a 36-19 lead with 4:37 left before taking a 40-27 lead into halftime.
“They came out from the start just pressuring and, you know, they set the tone and we just had to find a way to respond and we just didn’t do that to start the first half,” Karaban said. “They pressure, they’re athletic, they could switch. They have a really good defense, they’re super well-coached.”
St. John’s held an 18-point lead on a basket by Sellers less than two minutes into the second half, and UConn scored the next nine points, getting within 47-38 on a layup by Reed with 15:08 left. The Huskies kept charging back, and Reed’s short jumper cut the lead to 49-42 and prompted a timeout.
UConn sliced the lead to 10 on a basket by Malachi Smith with 8:03 left. St John’s answered by getting six straight points from Darling, a jumper by Sellers and a layup by Hopkins for a 69-49 lead with 3:27 left to essentially clinch matters.
–Larry Fleisher, Field Level Media
