Big East matchups don’t get much bigger than this one.
No. 15 St. John’s is set to face No. 6 UConn in Hartford on Wednesday night in a heavyweight bout that could ultimately decide the conference’s regular season crown.
St. John’s (15-1 in conference play) enters with a half-game lead over UConn (15-2) for first place in the conference standings.
A win would move the Red Storm one massive step closer to their second consecutive outright Big East title.
“They’re not gonna be more excited to play Connecticut [than] Creighton or Seton Hall or Georgetown,” St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino said of his players.
“Our guys are really locked into every opponent, because every opponent must be played differently. They have different strengths, and certainly, Connecticut has a lot of strengths.”
The stakes are clear: With a win, St. John’s would open up a two-game edge in the loss column over UConn with three games to play. It would also clinch the conference tiebreaker, having already defeated the Huskies at Madison Square Garden this month in the teams’ first meeting of the season.
But if UConn wins, the Huskies would tie St. John’s in the loss column and pull back into first place in the Big East by a half-game. UConn has two games left on its regular season schedule after Wednesday’s.
“For the rest of the way, St. John’s is not gonna lose, I’d imagine, any more than two games,” UConn head coach Dan Hurley said. “So, we can’t afford to lose another game in the regular season in the Big East if we want to win the league.”
St. John’s will arrive at Hartford’s PeoplesBank Arena on a 13-game winning streak — the program’s longest since the 1984-85 season.
The Johnnies are 8-0 in Big East road games.
But St. John’s is yet to face a road opponent as dynamic as UConn, which boasts as many as five players who could be selected in June’s NBA Draft.
“You can’t get too high,” St. John’s point guard Dylan Darling said of his team’s prolonged surge. “We’re gonna have to be engaged the whole time [against UConn].”
In their 81-72 home win over the Huskies on Feb. 6, the Zuby Ejiofor-led Red Storm imposed their will physically and wreaked havoc with an unrelenting press.
They forced nine turnovers, including nine by star point guard Silas Demary Jr., and limited standout freshman Braylon Mullins — a potential lottery pick — to 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting.
St. John’s has only improved defensively since then. On Saturday, the Red Storm shut down Creighton in an 81-52 rout at the Garden — a performance Pitino hailed as his team’s best defensive outing of the season.
And that was against the same Creighton team that, three days earlier, upset UConn in Storrs, Conn.
“It’s just all about preparation now,” St. John’s forward Dillon Mitchell said.
“Preparing for what UConn does as the next game on our schedule. Preparation wins games, so it’s getting back to the drawing board, figuring out what we’ve got to do. We played a great defensive game [against Creighton] and we’re gonna need another one.”
After Wednesday, UConn’s schedule is easier than the Red Storm’s.
The Huskies have a home game remaining against Seton Hall (9-8 in conference play) before finishing the regular season on the road against Marquette, which entered Tuesday in last place in the Big East.
St. John’s, meanwhile, still has home games against Villanova (12-4) and Georgetown (5-11 to begin Tuesday) before finishing on the road at Seton Hall.
That makes Wednesday’s game even more important for the Johnnies.
IAN’S ANKLE
Ian Jackson is set to return for Wednesday’s game after missing Saturday’s win with an ankle injury.
The sophomore guard averages 10.4 points per game to rank fourth on St. John’s, and he has started each of his last 18 appearances.
“We could have played him [against Creighton], but we have a pretty standard rule that if you don’t practice, you don’t play,” Pitino said.
“We’ll have him for Connecticut. He’s ready to go.”
