It started with \u2014 who else? \u2014 Zuby Ejiofor.<\/p>\n
Seton Hall was on a run, and the Pirates fans \u2014 and the Connecticut ones who had arrived early \u2014 were getting loud.<\/p>\n
A 19-point lead was down to six. <\/p>\n
There was still 4:41 left on the clock.<\/p>\n
Then, Ejiofor scored inside. <\/p>\n
He blocked a shot. <\/p>\n
Joson Sanon added two free throws, Dillon Mitchell came up with a steal. <\/p>\n
Soon, it was a 7-0 run. <\/p>\n
St. John\u2019s wasn\u2019t going to blow this lead, or a chance at repeating as Big East Tournament champions.<\/p>\n
Zuby Ejiofor attempts a shot during the St. John\u2019s game against Seton Hall on March 13, 2026. Robert Sabo for the NY Post<\/p>\n
For the first time since 1999-2000, St. John\u2019s is headed to back-to-back conference tournament title games, after this hard-fought 78-68 victory over local rival and fourth seed Seton Hall at the Garden on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Ejiofor improved to 6-1 in Big East Tournament games after finishing with 20 points and five rebounds.<\/p>\n
Sanon added 15 points and Dillon Mitchell (six rebounds, five assists) and Bryce Hopkins (seven rebounds, four assists) each had 13. <\/p>\n
Adam \u201cBudd\u201d Clark had 17 points and 11 assists for Seton Hall, which will likely miss the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
The Johnnies will meet the winner of No. 2 Connecticut\/No. 11 Georgetown in the nightcap Saturday night at 6:30 p.m. <\/p>\n
They have now won 18 of their past 19 games and have five straight Big East Tournament victories by double figures.<\/p>\n
Shaheen Holloway reacts during Seton Hall\u2019s loss to St. John\u2019s on March 13. Robert Sabo for the NY Post<\/p>\n
The start was almost an exact replay of Thursday\u2019s win over Providence, St. John\u2019s racing out to an 8-0 lead, with all eight points coming inside. <\/p>\n
Seton Hall didn\u2019t let the Johnnies run away and hide immediately. That happened later, with a pair of 11-0 runs.<\/p>\n
The first one, fueled by seven points from Sanon, enabled St. John\u2019s to take an eight-point lead into the break. <\/p>\n
Dillon Mitchell attempts a shot during St. John\u2019s March 13 win over Seton Hall. Robert Sabo for the NY Post<\/p>\n
The second one helped them blow it open.<\/p>\n
To start the second half, St. John\u2019s scored on its first four possessions, while holding the Pirates without a point on their five possessions. <\/p>\n
CHECK OUT THE LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS<\/a> AND ST. JOHN\u2019S STATS<\/a><\/p>\n At that point, the lead was 19, and Seton Hall was on the ropes.<\/p>\n Sanon, Mitchell and Ejiofor combined for 32 of St. John\u2019s 38 points on 13-for-22 shooting over the first 20 minutes. <\/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 The Red Storm shot a blistering 51 percent from the field in the first half and piled up 24 points in the paint. <\/p>\n They also held the Seton Hall standouts, Clark and AJ Staton-McCray, to a combined seven points on 3-for-11 shooting.<\/p>\n Over the first 11:08 of the second half, Seton Hall managed just six points. <\/p>\n The Pirates were held without a point over the first 5:35 of the stanza. <\/p>\n They did string together seven points in a row to get within 12 at the under-8 media timeout, and it was only a six-point game after a Staton-McCray 3-pointer with 4:41 remaining. <\/p>\n But Ejiofor scored on the other end, then blocked Jacob Dar inside and Sanon added two free throws to push the lead back to 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It started with \u2014 who else? \u2014 Zuby Ejiofor. Seton Hall was on a run, and the Pirates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4044,14601,63343,99,14602],"class_list":["post-522355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-college-basketball","tag-rick-pitino","tag-seton-hall-pirates","tag-sports","tag-st-johns-red-storm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522355","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=522355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}