St. John’s has a target on its back.
As the top seed in this week’s Big East Tournament, the red-hot Red Storm are the team to beat at Madison Square Garden.
And they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I think it’s great having a target on your back,” head coach Rick Pitino said Wednesday.
“The team knows it. They have to bring it. Boxers get knocked out because they’re overconfident. They put their hands down. … You’ve got to keep your guard up and be ready. And this team never takes anybody lightly.”
The Johnnies’ first bout is set for Thursday afternoon against the ninth-seeded Butler Bulldogs, who beat Providence, 75-69, in Wednesday’s opening round. St. John’s did not play Wednesday after earning a first-round bye.
St. John’s (27-4) swept Butler (14-18) in the regular season but both games were close. Those included last month’s 76-70 victory in Indianapolis in which the Bulldogs outrebounded the Red Storm and trailed by only two points with just over a minute remaining.
But tight games are nothing new for St. John’s.
Seven of the Red Storm’s last 10 games were decided by six points or fewer, and they won all but one of them.
Opponents frequently gave their best against St. John’s, which finished 18-2 in conference play and won its first outright Big East regular-season championship since 1985.
“It’s great preparation,” St. John’s forward Zuby Ejiofor said. “Throughout the entire year, we’ve kind of been in that 1-2 range. I couldn’t really have pictured this moment, but we all believed that we were gonna be the best team in the league and we were gonna win the Big East.
“To see that come into fruition is really special. We’ve just got to stick to our identity and stay level-headed, because we’ve still got a lot more to prove.”
The Red Storm’s excellent perimeter defense will be tested by a Butler team that shot 37.1% on 3-point attempts in the regular season. Jahmyl Telfort averaged 16.2 points per game, which ranked eighth in the conference, while fellow forward Pierre Brooks II averaged 15.2 points per game, which ranked 11th.
Brooks scored 25 points in Wednesday’s win, while Telfort added 16.
“It’s hard to beat a team three times,” St. John’s guard RJ Luis Jr. said, speaking broadly before Thursday’s matchup was set.
“I think pressure is great,” Luis said. “It obviously comes with success. If we didn’t want to have this type of pressure, we would have never won the regular-season championship. We would have never been ranked No. 6 in the nation. I think pressure is a great thing, and I think the main thing really is just staying humble.”
St. John’s seeks to win its first Big East Tournament since 2000, which is also the last year it won an NCAA Tournament game.
Butler, meanwhile, enters Thursday’s game with a different type of urgency, knowing it needs to win the Big East Tournament — and thus become the conference’s automatic qualifier — to make the Big Dance.
“When you’re atop the Big East, you always have a target on your back,” Ejiofor said. “It’s a good thing to have. It’s a good problem to have. Every team is going to give you their best game, and we embrace the challenge. We’re all ready for it.”
