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Rick Pitino figured that if Bill Self had recruited Zuby Ejiofor to Kansas, the talent was there.

While Pitino caught glimpses of Ejiofor’s ability last season after recruiting him to St. John’s as Joel Soriano’s backup, he is starting to see more breakout performances, including an impressive 28-point, 13-rebound showing against Kansas State.

Four days after Ejiofor’s best game of his career, the Red Storm host Bryant on Wednesday night in New York.

The Red Storm (7-2) are seeking their third straight win since returning from a 1-2 trip to the Bahamas. Ejiofor’s scoring average climbed from 11.8 to 13.6 after he scored 17 of his points in the second half against Kansas State to help St. John’s turn a four-point halftime deficit into an 88-71 win.

It was Ejiofor’s third double-double and third 20-point game after he scored 22 points in losses to Baylor and Georgia, and he is emerging after averaging 4.3 points in Pitino’s first season and 1.2 points in his only season at Kansas.

“If Zuby played for School X with his statistics and his analytics, I wouldn’t have recruited him,” Pitino said. “But because he played for Bill Self, one of the premier coaches in our game, I knew he’d be fundamentally sound (and) I knew he’d know how to work hard.

“And that’s one of the keys to evaluating who they play for. That was a big factor in why I recruited him, because he played for Bill Self, because if you looked at his statistics, you wouldn’t recruit him.”

Bryant (6-5) heads into the game as the America East’s top scoring team (86.3 points per game) through its first 11 contests and has the league’s second-leading scorer in former St. John’s guard Rafael Pinzon (19.6).

Last season, Pinzon averaged 13 points as Bryant’s sixth man following two seasons at St. John’s. He has scored at least 20 five times, including in his past three against Drexel, Brown and VTSU-Johnson on Sunday.

Connor Withers had 25 points as the Bulldogs scored at least 80 for the sixth time after allowing the go-ahead 3 with 2.2 seconds left in a one-point loss to Brown.

“It feels good, but more importantly the team got the win,” said Bryant guard Jakai Robinson, who had 10 points and 10 rebounds against VTSU-Johnson. “We all got it clicking and I just wanted to start the game, set the tone early with my energy. I feel it should be a good morale boost especially (since) we got a big one coming up on Wednesday.”

–Field Level Media