Before Wednesday’s electric and unexpected win at #5 UConn, Greg McDermott had a simple, if equally unexpected, message for his team.
“Let’s play our tails off and then let’s have a little bit of fun,” he recalled of his pregame message. “Let’s let it rip and see what happens. Don’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, just go play basketball.”
It was an unusual speech before a game of that magnitude, but it’s been an unusual few weeks for the Bluejays.
“That locker room is still healing, and they needed a shot in the arm,” McDermott said. “We’ve struggled the last six or seven games, and we’ve been through a lot as a group. There’s been a lot of tears, and they needed something like this. It’s a great win for us. It’s obviously a hard road trip coming here and then going to St. John’s on Saturday, but to come here and get this win, I’m not sure I’ve ever been prouder of a group.”
With that 91-84 win, the Jays proved they can walk into a hostile environment and take down a Goliath. Outscoring UConn 29-13 over a 14-minute stretch of the second half, CU was locked in on both ends of the floor in a way they’ve rarely been this season. Josh Dix (21 points) and Nik Graves (18 points) are coming into Madison Square Garden for a Saturday showdown with first place St. John’s playing some of their best basketball of the season.
The Red Storm have won 12 straight, and have won in just about every way imaginable in February — from a (literal) brawl against Providence, to an overtime shootout against Xavier, a defensive slugfest against DePaul, a second-half comeback at Marquette and an 81-72 win over UConn. Six weeks ago, they handled the Jays convincingly 90-73 in Omaha.
In that one, CU led 23-18 midway through the first half and then St. John’s responded with a devastating 34-11 run to close the half. Their defensive plan to double-team Zuby Ejiofor blew up in their face spectacularly: they didn’t feel like Jasen Green could guard him one-on-one without getting in foul trouble, so they sent help defenders and double-teams all game long. The trade off was giving up some open threes on the backside of the double-teams, and St. John’s hit just about all of them.
The defensive strategy half-worked, as they held Ejiofor well below his season average in scoring. But he made them pay for double-teaming him in other ways, dishing out six assists. The primary beneficiaries? Lefteris Liotopoulos (5-of-8 from three) and Dylan Darling (2-of-4 from three). Liotopoulos had been 9-of-27 for the season coming into the game; Darling had been 9-of-28.
Repeatedly, Creighton’s help-defense over-committed to Red Storm players who drove to the paint, leaving Liotopoulos and Darling wide open on the perimeter. The Bluejays’ wing defenders (like Fedor Zugic and Austin Swartz) have to stay glued to those two and try to make them put the ball on the floor. Under no circumstances can they let them catch and shoot in rhythm.
As a team, St. John’s shot a blistering 52.2% from three-point range (12-of-23). They bullied Creighton on the boards, winning the rebounding battle 39-26, and grabbed 12 offensive rebounds compared to Creighton’s two, resulting in a 10-0 advantage in second-chance points. The Red Storm also played incredibly clean basketball, committing only six turnovers the entire game while forcing nine from Creighton, turning those into 12 points off turnovers.
Bryce Hopkins averages 14.0 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, and has scored in double figures in 10 of the 12 games during their winning streak. He’s coming off a 23-point, 10-rebound game at Marquette on Wednesday where he made 7-of-11 inside the arc, 1-of-3 from outside and 6-of-7 at the line. He was relatively quiet in the first meeting mostly because they were scoring so easily from three-point range — he had 12 points and took just nine shots.
Oziyah Sellers averages 11.0 points per game and is second on the team with 39 made three-pointers. He came off the bench in the win over Marquette because he’d missed practice earlier in the week with a sore ankle, and because he was mired in a 7-of-29 shooting slump from three-point range. He scored 12 points and hit two 3-pointers in the win. Sophomore Joson Sanon got the start instead. Sanon averages 8.2 points and 2.6 rebounds, and is shooting 35.6% from outside.
In the first game in Omaha, Sellers had 16 points, six rebounds and five assists, and scored 14 of those 16 points in the first half. He was the primary ball handler during St. John’s’ surge at the end of the half, and used his dribble to collapse the Creighton defense, which either got him clean looks at the rim or allowed him to kick out to open shooters.
Ian Jackson is the fourth player averaging in double figures at 10.4 points per game, and has made the most threes on the team. He joined the three-pointer parade in Omaha by making 2-of-3 from deep en route to 12 points. He is (allegedly) out for tomorrow with an ankle injury, though, and was wearing a boot on Friday at practice according to beat writer Zach Braziller of the New York Post.
Dillon Mitchell averages 8.8 points and 7.1 rebounds per game, but took zero shots in their win over Marquette despite starting and playing 30 minutes. He impacted the game in other ways, grabbing seven rebounds (three offensive) and dishing out four assists with two steals. That’s typically been his role: he’s a capable scorer but is the fourth or fifth option, so he impacts winning through rebounding and defense. In Omaha, he had just eight points but grabbed nine boards and had three assists.
Creighton is coming off of a huge upset, but St. John’s presents a totally different athletic challenge than UConn did. Rick Pitino is going to try to speed the game up and use his depth to wear the Bluejays down. They’ll apply defensive pressure the entire game, usually for the entire 94 feet, making it non-negotiable for Creighton to limit turnovers.
One area where the Jays could potentially gain an advantage is at the line. They outscored UConn 27-11 at the free-throw line (shooting a near-perfect 17-of-18 in the second half), and drawing fouls on St. John’s aggressive defenders will serve two purposes: getting the Jays free points and slowing down the Red Storm’s rhythm.
Tip: 11:00am
Venue: Madison Square Garden, New York City, NY
TV: FOX
Announcers: Alex Faust and Donny Marshall
In Omaha: Cox channel 10 (SD), 1010 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 42 (SD), 1042 (HD); DirecTV 42; Dish Network 42 or 5203
Outside Omaha: Your local FOX affiliate
Streaming Fox Sports app and website
Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
Announcer: John Bishop
Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 383 as well as on the SiriusXM App
National Radio: ESPN
Announcers: Mike Couzens and Bob Valvano
Syndicated nationally on ESPN Radio affiliates and on SiriusXM
Live Stats:
Follow along on Stat Broadcast
Winners of 12 straight and 14 of their last 15, the Johnnies own the nation’s third longest winning streak and the longest winning streak by a high-major team. The Red Storm’s winning streak spans more than 45 days since starting at Butler on Jan. 6. They have not had a winning streak of 13 or more games since winning 19 straight from Dec. 22, 1984 to Feb. 23, 1985.
Saturday is the fourth annual Johnnies Day, celebrating the school’s proud contributions globally and rich history dating back to 1870. St. John’s is 3-0 all-time on Johnnies Day with all three wins coming against ranked opponents. The last two of those victories came at the expense of Creighton, which was ranked 15th in 2024 and 24th a year ago.
On the team’s current 12-game winning streak, the Johnnies have been superb at generating extra possessions through turnovers and offensive rebounds. Over the last 12 games, St. John’s is averaging 16.2 points off 13.1 turnovers compared to just 7.1 points off 8.5 turnovers for the opposition. Wednesday’s win at Marquette marked the first time on the winning streak that the opponent tallied more points off turnovers than the Red Storm, as the Golden Eagles logged 12 to the Johnnies’ 11. The Johnnies are also averaging 12.6 offensive rebounds per contest and converting those extra opportunities into 14.2 points per game compared to just 8.5 second-chance points on 9.3 offensive rebounds for the opposition. As a result of these efforts, St. John’s is averaging 5.6 more field goal attempts and 5.3 more free throw attempts per game than its opponent since Jan. 6
After defeating Dan Hurley’s Connecticut team on Wednesday, Creighton will try to take down St. John’s and coach Rick Pitino on Saturday. There have been 16 previous times that a team has faced Hurley and Pitino in back-to-back games in any order (all in the past three seasons since Pitino started at St. John’s), but no one has successfully won both games as Creighton is attempting to do on Saturday. Creighton is responsible for three of those 16 tries, including losses in 2024 and 2025 at Madison Square Garden immediately after defeating Connecticut.
Jasen Green never had more than nine rebounds in any of his first 85 career games, but he’s pulled down 11 boards in each of the past two games. Despite his rebounding prowess, Green is still in search of his first career double-double as he’s had five and eight points, respectively in those games. Green is Creighton’s first player to grab 10 or more rebounds in consecutive games without a double-double since Gregory Echenique in three straight games in January of 2012.
Creighton is 19-14 all-time against St. John’s, and 17-9 in the match-up since joining the Big East. Creighton is 0-5 in its previous visits to The Garden to meet St. John’s, but is 6-2 in eight trips to SJU’s on-campus home of Carnesecca Arena. Unfortunately, this one is at MSG.
On February 21, 2012 they withstood 43 points from Colt Ryan and rallied from 14 points down in the second half to beat Evansville 93-92 in overtime.
Gregory Echenique and Doug McDermott scrapped for a rebound at the buzzer after Antoine Young’s game-tying shot missed — it was Echenique who was ultimately able to slap at the ball in desperation and bat it, volleyball style, through the basket to send the game into OT. Then Josh Jones took over, scoring five of the Jays’ final six points.
It capped a wild week, as the Jays had rallied from nine points down in the second half against Long Beach State three days prior, winning that one on a buzzer-beater by Young. CU won those two games despite leading in the second half for a combined 0.3 seconds.
St. John’s is favored by 13.5, with ESPN’s BPI giving them 87.0% odds of victory. KenPom is ever so slightly more optimistic, predicting a 12-point Bluejay loss with 86% probability. I think it’ll be closer than that, but pulling off a second upset as a double-digit underdog in four days is too tall of a task.
St. John’s 82, Creighton 76