NEW YORK, NY — For the second consecutive March, St. John’s, the top-seed of the 2026 Big East Tournament, back-to-back regular season conference title holders and defending Big East Tourney champions, will be playing on Championship Saturday.
By defeating the No. 4-seeded Seton Hall Pirates, 78-68, Friday afternoon at Madison Square Garden, the Red Storm successfully punched its ticket back to the Big East Tournament championship and now have the chance to repeat at “The World’s Most Famous Arena” under the bright lights this Saturday night.
The center of attention in the Big Apple on a Saturday night.
Exactly what the doctor ordered when you factor in that No. 1 St. John’s will be meeting No. 2 UConn in the tournament championship as the Huskies beat No. 11 Georgetown in Friday’s semifinal nightcap, 67-51.
So it’s set in stone.
A trilogy, and not the ones we see in the sport of boxing. Though it may seem similar.
This one, a showdown for all the marbles before Selection Sunday between hated Big East Conference rivals—St. John’s and UConn—led by winning and established College Basketball heavyweights in head coach Rick Pitino of the Red Storm and Dan Hurley of the Huskies.
Rick Pitino has led St. John’s to back-to-back Big East Conference Tournament Championship game appearances, with the first being a year ago where he and the Red Storm celebrated as confetti drop down from MSG – Image Credit: St. John’s Men’s Basketball
Two coaches who have been at the top before, cutting down the nets in both March and April throughout their legendary coaching careers.
“Obviously it’s going to be a death match for the Big East championship,” said Hurley in Friday night’s postgame, also calling the championship matchup with St. John’s: “World War 3”
“Somebody’s walking out (through) the tunnel with nothing and somebody is getting confetti dropped on their head tomorrow.”
Dan Hurley and the UConn Huskies won the Big East Tournament Championship in 2024 then a few weeks later cut down more nets, winning the a second consecutive national championship (2023 and 2024) – Image Credit: UConn Men’s Basketball
“It’s tomorrow night,” Pitino sounded to the media earlier in the day in his postgame press conference.
“This is a championship. We’re playing for a championship. We played for the regular season as if our life was on the line. We’re going to play tomorrow as if our life is on the line. Then we’ll worry about the (March Madness) tournament.”
In this year’s Big East regular season campaign, St. John’s (27-6, 18-2 in BE play) and UConn (29-4, 17-3 in BE play), selected one and two respectively in the conference preseason polls, ending that way, with St. John’s winning the outright conference title, split its season series, 1-1.
The Red Storm prevailed in the first affair, 81-72, on February 6th at MSG, while for the second contest in Connecticut on February 25th—there wasn’t much of a game.
In their most recent meeting a few weeks ago in Connecticut after the Red Storm won the first matchup at MSG, UConn blew out St. John’s by a final of 72-40 – Image Credit: St. John’s Men’s Basketball
The Huskies blew out St. John’s in that second meeting, 72-40. A game where the Red Storm were held scoreless for the final 17 minutes and 28 seconds, missing 24 consecutive shots as a team.
With that said, the embarrassing showing, which made national sports headlines, was the Red Storm’s last loss since, rattling off five straight wins—two each on Villanova and Seton Hall and one on Providence.
The beasts of the Big East, No. 1 St. John’s and No. 2 UConn, are set to meet in the Big East Tournament Championship game Saturday night at Madison Square Garden – Image Credit: St. John’s Men’s Basketball
“For us new guys who weren’t part of the team last year, we want it just as bad and we have the same type of chip on our shoulder like we’re defending it like if we won it last year with them,” said St. John’s senior forward Dillon Mitchell, who is getting his first experience of the Big East Tournament this week as he spent his first two collegiate years at Texas and last season at Cincinnati.
“So it’s just about coming together, staying as one, going out there to compete for 40 minutes.”
Before those 40 minutes, there’s only one box left to check off and it’s buckling up.
It all comes down to Championship Saturday at The Garden—6:30PM ET on FOX.
St. John’s-UConn. Rick Pitino-Dan Hurley. With more than 19,000 in the building and only one team left standing when it’s all said and done as the championship confetti drops.
Who will it be?
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