MILWAUKEE – St. John’s coach Rick Pitino wanted his Red Storm to close the regular season with the kind of challenge they could expect to face in the NCAA Tournament.
They got all that and then some Saturday. And they responded by producing perhaps their most thrilling victory in a season full of memorable moments.
Zuby Ejiofor hit a game-winning shot to beat the overtime buzzer as the sixth-ranked Red Storm beat No. 20 Marquette 86-84 for their sixth straight victory. RJ Luis Jr. had forced overtime by sinking a tying basket with 10.7 seconds left in regulation.
Not a bad way to head into March Madness.
“It’s a hell of a win, probably my favorite win of the season by far,” Pitino said.
St. John’s (27-4, 18-2 Big East) seemingly didn’t have all that much at stake Saturday. The Red Storm already had clinched their first outright Big East regular-season title since 1985 a week earlier. They were playing without one of their starters as Deivon Smith recovers from a shoulder injury.
Pitino still wanted to make sure his team didn’t let up as it gets ready for the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2019.
“I said, ‘This is you’re one-and-done. You lose this game, the season’s over,’ “ Pitino said. “That’s the way you’ve got to play it to prepare for March Madness. You don’t just show up in March and say, ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do.’ You prepare for it now. You prepare for it at the Big East Tournament.”
This victory gives St. John’s at least a chance of entering the postseason with its first top-five ranking in the AP Top 25 since Jan. 29, 1991.
St. John’s probably doesn’t have a realistic hope of earning a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament – the Red Storm entered Saturday just 19th in the NET rankings – but they still have incentive next week that goes beyond winning a Big East Tournament for the first time since 2000. That also happens to be the last year that St. John’s won an NCAA Tournament game.
“We can probably, if we win out, we can get a 2 seed,” Pitino said. “It’d be great. We’d like to be in Providence certainly (for the first two rounds), for our fans. We’ll go wherever we go. At the beginning of the year, everybody in this room that follows the Johnnies would have said, ‘Just make the tournament. Just make the tournament,’ and they would have all been elated.”
St. John’s has benefited from the emergence of Big East player of the year candidate Luis, who had 28 points and 11 rebounds on Saturday. They made a major offseason addition with the arrival of Seton Hall transfer Kadary Richmond, who had 12 rebounds, 11 assists and 10 points against Marquette to record St. John’s first triple-double this century.
The last St. John’s triple-double came from future NBA All-Star Ron Artest against Seton Hall in 1999, back when this program was in the midst of three straight March Madness appearances and before Artest changed his name to Metta World Peace.
“He was an aggressive guy and he played very hard every night,” Richmond said. “It just means a lot to me and my teammates. We’ve been doing historical things all season.”
The latest milestone occurred Saturday as St. John’s matched a school record for regular-season wins. St. John’s also posted a 27-4 regular-season record in 1985-86 with a roster headed by Walter Berry. That team went on to win the Big East Tournament and earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament before losing 81-65 in the round of 32 to an Auburn team featuring Chuck Person.
This St. John’s squad has brought back memories of those St. John’s squads of the 1980s during the heyday of Lou Carnesecca’s coaching tenure. The final seconds of overtime emulated the St. John’s mentality this season.
With the score tied at 84-all, Luis missed a 3-pointer for St. John’s. Marquette’s Chase Ross initially got the rebound, but Richmond knocked the ball out of his hands and it went to Simeon Wilcher.
With time running out, Wilcher and Ejiofor were both in the paint. Wilcher got the ball to Ejiofor, who hit his second buzzer-beater of the season. Ejiofor had a putback as the horn sounded in a 72-70 victory at Providence on Dec. 20.
“Our entire thing is do whatever it takes to win,” Ejiofor said. “It doesn’t always look pretty every single night. It doesn’t matter. We fight through adversity. We’re a gritty team.”
They’re ready to keep fighting all the way through March.
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