No. 2 seed UConn saw its Big East championship hopes end after falling to top-seeded St. John’s, which claimed back-to-back titles.
St. John’s scored the first 10 points, 8 from Oziyah Sellers, who finished with 14 points on 4-of-8 shooting. The Red Storm built a 17-point lead after that kill-shot (h/t to Evan Miya). The 10-0 run included UConn’s five-second violation and an uncharacteristic offensive foul on Tarris Reed Jr. The Huskies did not score until the first media timeout, when Solo Ball converted a traditional 3-point play.
“They really jumped us to start the game,” Dan Hurley said in the postgame press conference. “I think we knew it would be a very forceful response from them, and we just weren’t able to match it…Just playing catch-up was an issue.”
Zuby Ejiofor was named the tournament’s most outstanding player after being an absolute force all game long. The reigning Big East Player of the Year (as well as Defensive Player of the Year) flirted with a triple-double, finishing his Madison Square Garden career with a performance of 18 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks on 7-of-11 overall shooting and a 2-of-3 clip from deep.
“He’s one of the best players in college I’ve ever coached against,” Hurley said, who compared Ejiofor to Al Horford atFlorida. “That guy’s just a total butt kicker.”
The first half got much worse when James Breeding issued a technical foul on Hurley for stomping his foot. Along with that, Solo Ball got dunked on; foul trouble became an issue with Reed and Eric Reibe and the Huskies committed 11 turnovers in the first half. A recipe for disaster.
“I was really surprised because I was kind of jumping as Silas [Demary Jr.] was jumping to score, almost like trying to jump it into the basket, because we weren’t able to score,” Hurley told CT Insider’s David Borges. “Obviously, I don’t think you should interpret why a coach has jumped.”
The Huskies were fortunate to be down by only 13 points at halftime. UConn shot 36% while St. John’s shot 50%. Four of St. John’s players scored at least 7 points in the opening frame. Because the Red Storm could not miss inside the arc in the first half, Connecticut held a 17-14 advantage on the glass.
It was important for UConn to win the first four minutes of the second half, especially when the deficit could have been a lot worse. The Huskies did exactly that, going on a 7-0 run to stop the bleeding. That turned into a 13-2 run by the 12:24 mark, and suddenly, UConn’s deficit was now seven points.
“I thought that if we put some game pressure on them down the stretch, I thought that we had a chance,” Hurley said.
St. John’s punched back with an open mid-range shot from Bryce Hopkins and Ejiofor’s 14th 3-pointer of the season to get it back to a 12-point game.
Connecticut shot 33.9% for the game and was subpar from downtown, shooting 3-of-19 from the perimeter. The Huskies finished the game missing 13 consecutive shots and were held without a field goal for the final 8:03. The Red Storm had a tremendous offensive night, hitting their shots at a 48.2% clip. UConn remained in front on the rebounding front, 38-30, but that was not the story.
The Huskies’ turnover problem continued to haunt them, turning the ball over 17 times. That led to 24 points for St. John’s. That defined the game.
“We had a lot of turnovers today,” Alex Karaban said. “I think all those losses [that we had this season], we had a bunch of turnovers.”
Reed and Karaban were named to the All-Big East Tournament Team. Reed had a massive impact in all three games and was the only player in double figures in the championship game with 17 points and seven rebounds on 8-of-17 shooting. Karaban did not sustain the strong shooting night he had in the quarterfinal round, scoring 7 points in the past two contests—each on 3-of-8 shooting. He passed 2004 NCAA champion Rashad Anderson for the most career 3-pointers in program history with his 276th in his four years.
The Huskies are flawed—there is no doubt about it. But they will be on the 2-seed line in the NCAA Tournament, with first and second rounds likely to be in Philadelphia. That is massive thanks to an incredible resumé during the non-conference portion of the schedule. Even though conference play may not have shown it at times, UConn’s ceiling still is a seventh national championship due to the team’s resumé. It also might help that the Huskies now face new opponents with a different playstyle compared to the grueling Big East.
“We’re gonna get excited about that,” Hurley said in a media scrum outside the team’s locker room.
But they will have to hold their breath for a precautionary X-ray on Silas Demary Jr.’s ankle, which Hurley said Demary suffered a mild sprain with no swelling.
“We’ll keep our fingers crossed,” Hurley said. “I mean, it didn’t look [bad] — hopefully it’s not something that lingers.”
UConn is now 8-4 in Big East Tournament title games, 35-41 all-time against St. John’s and 3-5 against the Red Storm in conference tournament play.
The Huskies will know its opponent, seeding, location and region during the NCAA Selection Show at 6 p.m. on CBS.