St. John's falls to top-seeded UConn in Big East semifinal; NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday now awaits
St. John's guard Daniss Jenkins walks to the sideline for a timeout against UConn in the second half of a Big East men’s basketball semifina;l at Madison Square Garden on Friday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
St. John’s returned to the Big East Tournament semifinals for the first time since 2000 and had all the required urgency, effort and hustle. However, a Connecticut team that is striving to make a case for the NCAA Tournament’s overall No. 1 seeding was just too a bit too much for the Red Storm on Friday night.
The No. 2-ranked and top-seeded Huskies threatened to break the game open several times in the second half, but St. John’s got within six points twice and five points in the final minute before UConn finally salted away a 95-90 win before a sellout crowd of 19,812 at the Garden.
“Connecticut is Connecticut — they’re just a machine,” St. John’s coach Rick Pitino said. “They can beat you 100 different ways. . . . Sometimes you can have great talent but talent doesn’t play well together. But when you get 23 assists? They have open shots that are really good, but they go after a better shot. That’s great.”
Connecticut (30-3) will face third-seeded Marquette — which beat seventh-seeded Providence, 79-68, in the late semifinal — in Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. championship game at the Garden. The Huskies will be in the final for the 11th time and will attempt to earn their first title since 2011. They can tie Georgetown with eight Big East titles.
The Red Storm (22-11), 5-7 in Big East semifinal games, now await Selection Sunday. St. John’s is nearly assured of hearing its name for the first time since 2019 after a 19-point win over Seton Hall in Thursday’s quarterfinals, and it has to feel good about how it is playing.
“I don’t think that we played a great game for all 40 minutes, and that’s kind of what it comes down to,” said Jordan Dingle (19 points). “Our competitive spirit never died and never wavered and we believed in ourselves ’til the very end. I think that’s the big takeaway for today’s game, and [we’re] going to keep going forward.”
“I like the way we’re playing,” said Daniss Jenkins (27 points, five assists). “We showed our character and we showed our pride by not letting them get away.”
After trailing by 14 points in the second half, St. John’s closed to within 91-85 on Glenn Taylor Jr.’s bucket with 35 seconds left and 93-87 on Jenkins’ layup with 11.5 seconds to go, and to the final score on Jenkins’ three free throws with 3.2 seconds left. It just couldn’t get it to a one-possession game.
“One thing about Connecticut — they do it all the time — is you think you’re in the game . . . only down four or six, and they win by 25,” said Pitino, who had coached teams to eight straight Big East Tournament wins, dating to his Louisville days, before Friday. “It happens all the time. But it hasn’t happened against us.”
St. John’s shot 45.1% and committed only five turnovers but allowed the Huskies to shoot 57.4% and go 11-for-22 from three-point range.
Tristen Newton had 25 points and nine assists, Cam Spencer added 20 points and nine assists and Alex Karaban had 14 points for the Huskies.
St. John’s trailed by five at halftime and made it 52-50 on Dingle’s drive and 56-54 on Jenkins’ pull-up jumper. But the Huskies reeled off a 13-2 run in a span of 3:42, capped by Samson Johnson’s layup off Spencer’s offensive rebound for a 69-56 lead with 13:48 left.
A hotly contested first half ended with UConn up 52-47 after Jenkins’ layup as time expired was ruled to have come after the horn. But the most exciting moment might have come 8:16 before the break.
Joel Soriano was called for a foul and Pitino received a technical foul for arguing it. As officials were reporting it to the scorer’s table, a spectator in the first row — longtime Pitino friend Tom O’Grady — pointed out that Huskies coach Dan Hurley was outside the coaching box. Hurley also was called for a technical. At halftime, Hurley sought to have security remove the fan.
“Spike Lee is much worse than Tommy,” Pitino said. “What I said was meant to draw a technical and succeeded in drawing a technical.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.