St. John’s Wins 1st Big East Regular Season Title in 33 Years

From the 1979-80 through the 1991-2 basketball seasons, St. John’s University won a share or outright Big East Conference regular season title four times under coach Lou Carnesecca, and made it to the Final Four once during that time. They did not win a conference title after that, and although there were some decent overall records and some NCAA tournament appearances, the program hadn’t made it past the second round of the NCAA since reaching the Elite Eight in the 1998-99 season. Several head coaches were tried, but none could bring the Red Storm back to the top of the standings. After the 2022-23 Red Storm finished with a 7-13 conference record and 18-15 overall, coach Mike Anderson was fired after four years on the job.

Enter Rick Pitino. The same Rick Pitino who won NCAA Championships at both Kentucky and Louisville, the only head coach to win this championship at two schools. Pitino is a proven winner, but an escort sex scandal involving recruits at Louisville and a pay for play incident involving a recruit at the same school temporarily derailed his career. Pitino left Louisville and coached in Greece in 2018-2020 before returning to the U.S. to coach at Iona. He was hired in 2023 at St. John’s.

Pitino’s Red Storm was 20-13 overall and 11-9 in Big East play last season. This year, St. John’s finished the regular season 18-2 in the Big East, and 27-4 overall, for its first Big East regular season title since tying for the crown in the 1991-92 season. The Red Storm, ranked #6 in the country, capped off the regular season with an 86-84 overtime victory over #20 Marquette in Milwaukee on March 8th.

St. John’s receives a bye for the first round of the Big East Tournament, and will play the winner of the March 12th Round 1 game between Providence and Butler.