They didn\u2019t come close to matching the Huskies\u2019 intensity, force and determination at all in this 72-40 eyesore of a beatdown that saw them go the final 17:28 without a made field goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all on me,\u201d coach Rick Pitino said outside the somber Red Storm locker room after one of the worst losses of his Hall of Fame career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Later, he added: \u201cWe did things that we\u2019ve never done. And that\u2019s something I\u2019ve got to question about myself, and I will question it because the team did not do the things we\u2019ve done in the last 13 games.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so St. John\u2019s (20-6, 15-2) 13-game winning streak \u2014 the program\u2019s longest since the 1984-85 Final Four campaign \u2014 came to an end in gruesome fashion. <\/p>\n
Now, the two teams are tied in the loss column atop the conference, although St. John\u2019s still controls its own destiny. Win out, and they would at worst share the league title and land the top seed in next month\u2019s Big East Tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
First they have to pick themselves up off the mat Saturday at the Garden against Villanova.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"UConn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/11-jayden-ross-23-connecticut-122209723.jpg\")
Alex Karaban (11) and Jayden Ross (23) celebrate during the first half of UConn\u2019s 72-40 blowout victory over St. John\u2019s at PeoplesBank Arena on Feb. 25, 2026 in Hartford, Conn. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThis loss is one that you really want to forget and move on to the next opponent,\u201d Zuby Ejiofor said<\/a>. \u201cChampionship-level teams respond in a positive way. My job is to make sure we are a lot more prepared for the next opponent than we were tonight. Today was an off game for me personally, as well as the team. But you have to quickly flush it and get ready for the next opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n It was ugly, the ugliest St. John\u2019s loss since Pitino\u2019s arrival three years ago. It marked the first time a Pitino team failed to score 50 points since Louisville managed just 46 against Virginia in 2016. It also was the fewest points ever scored by a Pitino-led team.<\/p>\n CHECK OUT THE LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS<\/a> AND ST. JOHN\u2019S STATS<\/a><\/p>\n As or the Johnnies, It was their fewest points since they also scored 40 in a loss to Notre Dame in 2013.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, I couldn\u2019t tell you,\u201d Ejiofor said, when asked what he thought led to such a lopsided result. \u201cI\u2019ve never been through that experience before. \u2026 Tonight was not what I expected at all.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, I couldn\u2019t tell you,\u201d Ejiofor said, when asked what he thought led to such a lopsided result. \u201cI\u2019ve never been through that experience before. \u2026 Tonight was not what I expected at all.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n There were scoring droughts of 7:23 and 10:46. St. John\u2019s couldn\u2019t score and it couldn\u2019t stop Connecticut (26-3, 16-2). The Johnnies were hammered inside and on the perimeter. It was an absurd 40-12 margin in points in the paint. They missed their final 24 shots of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joson Sanon led St. John\u2019s in scoring with 10 points, and he didn\u2019t score after halftime. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tYour weekly dispatch from the No. 1 source on the Johnnies\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside St. John’s by Zach Braziller, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Ejiofor, who dominated the first meeting, was limited to six points on 3-of-14 shooting and just five shots. St. John\u2019s shot a dreadful 20 percent from the field, was 5-for-20 from 3-point range and forced only five turnovers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tarris Reed Jr. was the best player on the floor, finishing with 20 points, 11 rebounds and six blocks. Alex Karaban added 14.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI just think it was one of those nights where everything went great for us and everything went wrong for them,\u201d Connecticut coach Dan Hurley said. \u201cBut we did a lot to make that happen. And, obviously, we expect to see them potentially a third time.\u201d<\/p>\n That would likely be in the Big East Tournament title game, since the teams are nearly guaranteed to finish first and second. But before St. John\u2019s can even think of such a rematch, it has a lot of work to do after this performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis was not St. John\u2019s basketball at all,\u201d Ejiofor said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARTFORD, Conn. \u2014 Connecticut was the desperate team.\u00a0 The one that needed a win to keep its Big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[18365,4044,99,14602,31478],"class_list":["post-491577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-big-east","tag-college-basketball","tag-sports","tag-st-johns-red-storm","tag-uconn-huskies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/guarded-uconn-guard-solo-ball-122210003.jpg\")
Bryce Hopkins drives on Solo Ball in the first half of St. John\u2019s blowout road loss to UConn on Feb. 25, 2026. AP<\/p>\n