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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 13: Zuby Ejiofor #24 of the St. John's Red Storm goes to the basket during the 2026 Big East Men's Tournament - Semifinal game against the Seton Hall Pirates at Madison Square Garden on March 13, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
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Before the season, St. John’s and Connecticut were seen as clearly the Big East Conference’s best men’s basketball programs. They have done nothing to disprove that prediction, finishing first and second in the league by a wide margin, splitting their regular season matchups and entering the postseason as the league’s only nationally ranked teams.
On Saturday night, they will meet again, this time at Madison Square Garden with the Big East tournament championship on the line and a chance to improve their seeding in the NCAA tournament.
The teams advanced to the title game with ease in Friday night’s semifinals. No. 1 seed St. John’s defeated No. 4 seed Seton Hall, 78-68, in the opener, while No. 2 seed UConn defeated No. 11 seed Georgetown, 67-51, in the nightcap to set up what’s seemed inevitable for months.
“I think both teams have really pushed each other the whole year,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “It’s going to be a death match for the Big East championship. Both of us have really delivered for this league in a year where this league needs a game like tomorrow night that everyone that’s a basketball fan’s going to be dialed into.”
Indeed, this has been an unusual year for the Big East, a league normally known for its depth. The conference has had at least five teams in the NCAA tournament seven times in the past 11 seasons. But this year, Villanova is likely the only other Big East team besides St. John’s and UConn that will be in the NCAA field. The three bids would tie for the fewest in conference history that dates to the 1979-80 season.
And while coach Kevin Willard has done a nice job in his first season at Villanova, which missed the NCAAs in all three seasons under former coach Kyle Neptune, the Wildcats are still far behind the league’s top two teams. Villanova (24-8) went 15-5 during Big East teams in the regular season, but the Wildcats lost both times they played St. John’s and UConn.
Meanwhile, St. John’s (27-6) went 18-2 in league play to win its second consecutive regular season title, and UConn (29-4) won 17 of its 20 regular season Big East games. In the AP poll, UConn is No. 6 and St. John’s is No. 13. They are No. 9 and No. 21, respectively, in the NCAA’s NET metric and analyst Ken Pomeroy’s ranking. Villanova is No. 36 in the NET and No. 33 in KenPom. No other Big East team is ranked within the top 49 of either metric, making it hard to envision the NCAA selection committee choosing a fourth Big East team.
Still, the league can hang its hopes on St. John’s and UConn. In their first meeting on Feb. 6, St. John’s snapped UConn’s 18-game winning streak with an 81-72 victory at MSG in an atmosphere that Red Storm coach Rick Pitino described as among the best he’s ever seen. Later in the month, the Huskies responded by defeating the Red Storm, 72-40, the fewest points a Pitino-coached team ever scored since he began coaching college basketball 51 years ago. In that game, St. John’s missed its last 24 shots and ended its 13-game winning streak.
On Saturday, the Red Storm will be looking to avenge that lopsided loss on their home court, although there will likely be plenty of UConn fans in attendance, as well. The teams will meet in the title game for the first time since playing each other in 1999 and 2000, with UConn winning the former and St. John’s the latter.
Saturday will be the eighth St. John’s-UConn matchup in the Big East tournament. St. John’s has won four of the previous matchups, but UConn won the last time they met in 2024 when the Huskies defeated the Red Storm, 95-90, in the semifinals and then went on to win the league and national titles.
After UConn’s victory Friday night, Hurley spoke about a mutual respect between himself and Pitino, who has won national titles with Kentucky and Louisville and rebuilt a Red Storm program that had fallen on hard times for more than two decades since he arrived in 2023. Pitino last year led St. John’s to its first Big East regular season outright title since 1985 and first tournament championship since 2000.
Hurley and Pitino will be on the opposite sidelines for the eighth time Saturday, with Hurley holding a four-to-three edge. But the stakes will be higher than any of their previous games, as UConn will be seeking its record ninth Big East title (one more than Georgetown) and St. John’s will be aiming for its fifth league championship.
“It’s a privilege to get on the court tomorrow night,” Hurley said. “Listen, somebody’s walking out of the tunnel with nothing and somebody is getting confetti dropped on their head.”
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