By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Queens\u2019 St. John\u2019s University is heading back to the NCAA Tournament as a 5-seed following a repeat as BIG EAST champions. <\/p>\n
The St. John\u2019s Red Storm Men\u2019s Basketball team will return to the big dance this week following another historic season and their second straight BIG EAST victory. <\/p>\n
Their first round matchup will come on Thursday, March 20 in San Diego against 12-seed Northern Iowa University. <\/p>\n
The Queens squad \u2013 led by Johnnies star Zuby Ejiofor and hall of fame coach Rick Pitino \u2013 finished their regular season 28-6 overall, and 18-2 in conference play. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll year, we had a target on our backs,\u201d Ejiofor said after the BIG EAST win. \u201cWe had to battle through adversity all season. Nobody believed we could get to this moment but us.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ejiofor wasn\u2019t the only bright spot on the Red Storm\u2019s roster. <\/p>\n
Bryce Hopkins, Dillion Mitchell and Oziyah Sellers all stood out during the BIG EAST tournament and the regular season. <\/p>\n
They continued their winning ways from the regular season through the BIG EAST tournament last week, steamrolling over Providence, Seton Hall and finally rival UConn. <\/p>\n
The Red Storm defeated UConn on Saturday by 20 points, 72-52, to take the BIG EAST trophy back to Queens for the second straight year. <\/p>\n
Ejiofor, who also won BIG EAST player of the year and has cemented himself as one of the best to ever wear a St. John\u2019s uniform, dominated with 18 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks in the championship game. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s one of the best players in college I’ve ever coached against,\u201d UConn head coach Dan Hurley said after the championship. <\/p>\n
On Monday, St. John\u2019s announced it would honor its senior star alongside other former Queens greats next year. <\/p>\n
The BIG EAST win and ticket to the NCAA tournament is another notch in the belt for Pitino, who took over at St. John\u2019s in 2023 and has revolutionized the program. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what was better, the defense, the offense or the attitude,\u201d Pitino said after the UConn victory. \u201cI’m real proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pitino and his players have big expectations going into the tournament this year. <\/p>\n
His squad is the 5-seed in the East division, which includes powerhouse schools like Kansas, Duke and UConn \u2013 who is the 2-seed. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe East is loaded, certainly, but look, we\u2019re excited to be part of this,\u201d Pitino told reporters. \u201cRight now, we\u2019re playing good basketball, and that\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Johnnies hope to spend a little longer at the dance this year than they did in 2025, a trip that was cut short after a second round defeat to Arkansas. <\/p>\n
St. John\u2019s was the 2-seed last year. <\/p>\n
For now, the Queens school is celebrating the win and looking forward to playing some basketball on the big stage. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys are really excited,\u201d said Ejiofor. \u201cEverything in the past now, you just kind of gotta move on, get your head where your feet are, and just stay together. I think that’s the biggest thing. And like I said, nobody wants to lose in the first round. You want to keep going and keep playing basketball together like what we\u2019ve been doing.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach Queens\u2019 St. John\u2019s University is heading back to the NCAA Tournament as a 5-seed following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-165333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}