MADISON SQUARE GARDEN (NEW YORK) — Profanity-laced chants directed at UConn head coach Dan Hurley began ringing around the arena during the national anthem, at times overshadowing a tremendous rendition of the song. “F— you, Dan!” one St. John’s student shouted, alcoholic beverage in hand. “F— Dan Hurley!” a few others answered.
The modern Big East’s most thrilling rivalry came to life before the ball was even tipped.
It didn’t used to look and feel this way inside The World’s Most Famous Arena, where a sell-out crowd on Friday night bathed the building in red. The split, according to St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino, was “90-10” in favor of the Red Storm. That certainly didn’t happen in years gone by, when legions of fans supporting UConn — a program that refers to Madison Square Garden as “Storrs South” — routinely filled the seats after a short train ride into Grand Central Terminal.
Two seasons ago, though, the hiring of Pitino changed all that. He injected a dormant program with life, with verve, with expectations and — most importantly — with the same level of winning he’s experienced across more than five decades of coaching. There were 20 wins in his first season and 31 in his second, a campaign punctuated by Big East regular season and tournament titles. Suddenly, gobs of New Yorkers began hawking tickets that used to be purchased by opposing fans. That’s why this environment roared and reverberated, rocked and rollicked as No. 22 St. John’s completed an upset of No. 3 UConn, 81-72, to snap the Huskies’ 18-game winning streak and reopen the Big East race.
“I thought The Garden was as good as I’ve seen it,” Pitino said.
Here are my takeaways:
A Historic Victory for St. John’s
As reporters congregated in the media room following the final buzzer on Friday night, waiting for the postgame news conferences to begin, a member of the St. John’s athletic communications department began contextualizing the team’s victory for all to hear.
Not since the 2020-21 season had St. John’s beaten a team ranked third or higher in the AP Poll. Not since the 2010-11 season had the Red Storm beaten a team ranked third or higher in a game that was played at Madison Square Garden. And not since the 1999-2000 season had the Johnnies won three consecutive games over UConn, a streak Pitino’s team matched on Friday night after sweeping both matchups last year. What St. John’s accomplished here before a sold-out crowd embodied everything the program has become under Pitino.
“Everybody from top to bottom was really engaged,” St. John’s center Zuby Ejiofor said. “The moment when the buzzer sounded and it was over and you realize that you just beat a really well-coached team, all the emotions really just flew out of me. I can’t really remember what was done or what was said. But I just let it all out. Just a fantastic atmosphere to be in.”
Historical significance aside — this was also Pitino’s 903rd career win, tied with Roy Williams for third-most all time — the Red Storm’s victory should prove incredibly important in the race for this year’s regular season conference title. UConn entered Friday’s game with an unblemished 12-0 mark in league play, which was the program’s best start to a Big East slate since 1995-96, and it was good enough to give them a 1.5-game advantage over St. John’s.
Now, the two teams are tied in the loss column with only four weeks remaining before the Big East Tournament. It’s entirely possible that the rematch at PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford will effectively crown the league’s regular season champion.
Zuby Ejiofor Stakes His Claim as the Big East’s Best Center
The Huskies cannot seem to defend without fouling. They committed 23 fouls on Friday night, which led to 22 points at the free-throw line for the Red Storm, a plus-17 advantage over UConn. And when this game was factored into the formulas used by KenPom, the Huskies careened all the way to 314th nationally in opponent free-throw rate.
“Will you pay the fine?” Hurley said when asked about the officiating. “How many reprimands am I on right now? There’s just a couple of [plays], like when Silas [Demary] is driving down the lane and he gets fouled by two different people. And I thought Alex [Karaban] got fouled on at least one of those two drives in the paint [during crunch time]. And then when we fouled, they called it. We’re undisciplined as a fouling team.”
“A lot of it has to do with St. John’s. I mean, they’re grown-ass men. [Dillon] Mitchell, [Bryce] Hopkins and Ejiofor, when you have to play them in Big East games, the way that the game is going to be officiated in conference play, I mean, they’re built for Big East games.”
Those three players combined to draw 17 fouls by themselves on Friday night.
Dylan Darling is an Unsung Hero for St. John’s
When Pitino assembled the nation’s top-ranked transfer class last spring, few people in the college basketball world focused their attention on Dylan Darling, an unheralded addition from Idaho State and Washington State before that. Darling was rated the No. 419 overall player and No. 69 point guard in the portal, per 247Sports.com — hardly a needle-mover within a group of newcomers that included four other players ranked among the top 60.
And yet, aside from Ejiofor, Darling was the second-most influential player for St. John’s. The 6-foot-1, 175-pound Darling applied defensive pressure in his matchup with UConn point guard Silas Demary Jr., who scored a team-high 18 points but also turned the ball over nine times.
“He’s a great point guard, you know?” Hurley said. “That guy is a heck of a player. And to be able to do what he does, [with] whatever his minute situation is game to game — when they need that guy to step up, I mean, he made a huge difference in that game.”
So much so that Pitino expanded on his description of Darling from last month, when the backup guard scored 11 points, grabbed three rebounds and dished out three assists in a narrow road victory over Xavier. On that night, Pitino said Darling has “balls as big as church bells” because of how unflappable he is during critical moments. And on Friday night, after Darling made one winning play after another, Pitino said those church bells “just keep growing and growing.”
“His level of wanting to take over a game is amazing to me,” Pitino said. “He comes off a play, breaks the play and goes to the rim. Makes a great steal, gets to the floor [for the loose ball]. Makes a big 3. It’s really amazing what he’s doing right now.”
What’s Next?
The Huskies will return to action Wednesday night at Butler for the first of three consecutive games against teams with a combined conference record of 16-21 — a reprieve of sorts before embarking on a difficult finishing kick. UConn’s closing stretch includes tricky rematches with Villanova, St. John’s and Seton Hall, all of whom are in the top four of the league standings, across a seven-day stretch in late February before the regular season finale at Marquette.
St. John’s, meanwhile, has a tight turnaround before hosting Xavier on Monday night in the second father-versus-son coaching battle of the season, with the Musketeers coached by Richard Pitino. The rematch with Xavier marks the beginning of a considerably more favorable closing stretch for St. John’s in which six of the final eight games will come against teams with league records of .500 or worse entering this weekend.
