St. John’s advances to Big East championship game with dominant win over Seton Hall

Zuby Ejiofor finishes dunk as part of 20-point outing in St. John’s Big East tournament semifinal win over Seton Hall. (Photo by St. John’s Athletics)

By Sam Federman (@Sam_Federman)

NEW YORK — Two days in a row, St. John’s reminded the Big East why it won the regular season championship with a dominant 18-2 season. And it didn’t take long to do it either day.

The Red Storm scored on each of its first four possessions, grabbing a few offensive rebounds in the process, to take an eight-point lead and force a Seton Hall timeout. It came after the Johnnies opened up a 15-point lead in the first few minutes of Thursday’s quarterfinal against Providence.

Riding that early lead, St. John’s held off a push from Seton Hall, a team head coach Rick Pitino said “breaks everybody,” to topple the Pirates, 78-68, at Madison Square Garden and advance to its second straight Big East championship game. It sets up a chance for back-to-back Big East tournament titles for the first time in program history.

“From (Joe) Lapchick to (Lou) Carnesecca, they dominated, and then they went into hibernation like a bear,” Pitino said of the St. John’s program and its history. “And then these guys got them out of hibernation. But Dillon (Mitchell) and Joson (Sanon) don’t realize how good St. John’s was back in the day.”

What happened last year doesn’t matter, let alone 50 years ago, before the formation of the Big East. All that matters is that when St. John’s steps between the lines, the Red Storm is going to set the tone, and fast.

“That’s what we’ve been preaching all season,” Zuby Ejiofor said. “Going in there in the first four minutes and setting the tone to be as physical as possible. That’s something we live for, and we’ve still got a lot of areas to improve, but this is a truly special moment. It’s not every day you have an opportunity to win a Big East title in MSG.”

“I think we’ve been through a lot early on in the season,” Dillon Mitchell added. “One of the hardest things, like Coach P said, is playing with a lead, and that's something we’ve learned from. We don’t want to get into a position where we’re down 15 like we were against Xavier and Seton Hall and trying to fight back. So it’s just staying level-headed as a team, coming together, and it really starts with off-the-court stuff for us, just hanging out all the time, chatting, and just being together. It really helps on the court, so when we get to those positions, we know to trust each other and have each other’s back.”

With the same professionalism it showed during Thursday’s matchup with Providence, the Red Storm was businesslike in its approach. After Seton Hall made a run to finish the first half down by eight, St. John’s came out of the second half with another run, even longer than the one it had to open up the first half.

“At the end of the half, you’ve gotta play like it’s 0-0,” Ejiofor said. “No matter what the score is. And I think we did a great job coming out with the energy.”

St. John’s went on an 11-0 run to open up the second 20 minutes, which was enough to hold off the run that it knew Seton Hall would make. The Pirates’ fans started to make their voices heard, cutting the lead to six, but Ejiofor drew a mismatch against Seton Hall point guard Budd Clark in the post, and scored at the end of the shot clock.

Seton Hall never got that close again. It took another two-plus minutes for the Pirates to score, and by the time they finally did, the Johnnies were back ahead by 13.

“At that time, you’ve really just gotta stay composed,” Ejiofor said. “I live for these moments, having an opportunity to go win and advance.”