The long climb back to national relevance has finally ended for No. 20 St. John’s.
But Rick Pitino and the Red Storm are nowhere near satisfied.
St. John’s will look to win in its first game since returning to the Top 25 when it hosts Xavier in a Big East Conference clash Wednesday night in New York.
Both teams have been off since extending their winning streaks in wire-to-wire fashion on Saturday. St. John’s rolled to a 79-51 win over host Seton Hall in Newark, N.J., while visiting Xavier held off a furious second-half rally by then-No. 7 Marquette to escape with a 59-57 victory.
The fifth straight win for the Red Storm (16-3, 7-1) vaulted them into the poll for the first time since mid-November and into sole possession of first place in the Big East. St. John’s has not been alone atop the league this late in a season since the 1985-86 season, when it finished 31-5.
St. John’s is cruising toward its first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2019. It has not won a tournament game since 2000.
Of course, being ranked, leading a league or appearing in the NCAA tourney is nothing new for Pitino, the two-time national championship-winning coach whose track record suggested a big second-year leap was coming.
“I’d rather take first place than last place, but I really don’t think about that,” Pitino said Saturday night. “I’m proud for the St. John’s fans. I know it means something to them.”
The St. John’s resurgence has been fueled by suffocating defense, another Pitino staple. The team entered the week fifth nationally in defensive efficiency, per KenPom.com. Opponents are averaging just 66.1 points per game, which would be the lowest figure surrendered by the Red Storm since 2006-07 (64.1).
Defense was a key factor on Saturday for Xavier (12-7, 4-4), which held Marquette to its fewest points this season despite a late comeback attempt by the Golden Eagles.
The Musketeers led 45-26 with about 15 minutes left before the Golden Eagles went 12-for-20 from the field the rest of the way, including 7-for-9 over the final 5:13. Marquette had two chances to tie the score or take the lead in the final minute.
“We played with a lot of togetherness and a lot of toughness on the defensive end,” Xavier coach Sean Miller said. “As the game wore on, they started to get way too many second shots, and I think that’s what kept them in the game for a while. But some of that is they can really wear you down. It was a hard-playing game. Our guys were fatigued at the end.”
The win was the third straight for Xavier, which hasn’t won four or more consecutive Big East games since opening the 2022-23 league season at 7-0.
The Musketeers’ victory over Marquette was their first against a top-10 opponent since beating UConn on Dec. 31, 2022, and their first top-10 win on the road since defeating Seton Hall on Feb. 1, 2020.
–Field Level Media
