{"id":321118,"date":"2025-10-21T12:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T12:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/321118\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T12:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T12:11:12","slug":"st-johns-narrowly-picked-over-uconn-to-win-big-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/321118\/","title":{"rendered":"St. John\u2019s narrowly picked over UConn to win Big East"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Big East coaches are in lockstep with<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/10\/13\/sports\/st-johns-gets-highest-preseason-poll-ranking-in-program-history\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Associated Press poll voters.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>They see a big year for St. John\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>On media day for the conference, the league\u2019s coaches picked Rick Pitino\u2019s Johnnies to finish atop the Big East \u2014 the first time that has happened since 1991.<\/p>\n<p>Star forward Zuby Ejiofor was selected as the preseason Player of the Year and Providence transfer Bryce Hopkins was picked to the first team.<\/p>\n<p>St. John\u2019s narrowly edged out Connecticut, receiving seven of 11 first-place votes. UConn picked up the other four. Creighton was picked third, Providence fourth, Marquette fifth and Georgetown sixth. Villanova and new coach Kevin Willard were chosen seventh, followed by Xavier, DePaul, Butler and Seton Hall.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-foot-9 Ejiofor is considered one of the country\u2019s top two-way forwards. Last season, he averaged 14.7 points, 8.1 rebounds and 1.4 blocks, and was the linchpin to St. John\u2019s elite defense. Ejiofor also led the country in offensive rebounds per game at 4.4 and is the team\u2019s lone returning starter.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.46494993;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37439358\" width=\"864\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/rick-pitino-st-johns-red-113723606.jpg\" alt=\"Rick Pitino of the St. John's Red Storm reacts on the sideline during a game against the Towson Tigers.\" class=\"wp-image-37439358\"  \/> Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>The Red Storm are coming off their best season in 25 years, winning Big East regular season and postseason titles. <\/p>\n<p>They also won their first NCAA Tournament game in 25 years and then added the top-ranked transfer class in the country, according to 247Sports.com.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>In last week\u2019s AP preseason poll, St. John\u2019s was ranked fifth, the school\u2019s highest ranking prior to a season in program history.<\/p>\n<p>The Big East first team was made up of Hopkins, Connecticut trio Alex Karaban, Tarris Reed Jr. and Solo Ball, Marquette guard Chase Ross and Creighton forward Owen Freeman, an Iowa transfer.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.37265416;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37439359\" width=\"810\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/24-st-johns-red-storm-113730955.jpg\" alt=\"Zuby Ejiofor #24 of St. John's Red Storm goes up for a shot as Mor Seck #41 of the Towson Tigers defends.\" class=\"wp-image-37439359\"  \/> Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>St. John\u2019s sophomore Ian Jackson, a North Carolina transfer, made the second team and Red Storm duo Joson Sanon and Dillon Mitchell were picked to the third team.<\/p>\n<p>St. John\u2019s will meet seventh-ranked Michigan in an exhibition game on Saturday at the Garden. Last Saturday, they overcame a shaky first half to knock off CAA favorite Towson 73-63 at Carnesecca Arena. The regular-season opener is set for Nov. 3 against Quinnipiac.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big East coaches are in lockstep with Associated Press poll voters. They see a big year for St.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":321119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,30695,2076,1317,1337,1338,30692,62,1378,9767,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-321118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-big-east","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaabasketball","14":"tag-rick-pitino","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-st-johns-red-storm","17":"tag-uconn-huskies","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115412093859103400","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}