St. John's center Zuby Ejiofor has been enjoying a remarkable season
St. John's center Zuby Ejiofor reacts during overtime against the Xavier Musketeers in a Big East men’s basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Heartbreak and exultation. We don’t see those two juxtaposed very often. Yet that’s what happened when St. John’s went to the Bahamas in November, and Zuby Ejiofor was right in the middle of both.
With St. John's leading Baylor by two in the final seconds of the second overtime in the Baha Mar Hoops Championship semifinals, Ejiofor missed a pair of free throws. That left the door open for Jeremy Roach’s winning three-pointer at the buzzer for Baylort. The 6-9 junior appeared inconsolable afterward.
At the consolation game against Virginia the next day, the considerable contingent of Red Storm fans that attended the tournament chanted his name to show their belief in him.
Ejiofor not only is the kind of person who inspires that sort of support but is having the kind of season that inspires all kinds of optimism.
In October, his St. John’s teammates unanimously voted to make the always-optimistic, relentlessly determined Texan one of the team captains, and he was excited about it. As we enter the last week of January, St. John’s is the 20th-ranked team in the nation and Ejiofor is second on the team in scoring average at 14.6 points and first in rebounds (8.2) and blocked shots (1.9). He is averaging 4.5 offensive rebounds per game — a true "effort category’' — which ranked second in the nation entering Friday’s games.
Ejiofor spent most of last season as Joel Soriano’s backup, a solid defender with a limited offensive game who averaged about 11 minutes a game. Even he said he couldn’t have imagined having a season like this.
“I would say that I am a little bit of a surprise,” Ejiofor said Thursday after another improbable comeback victory, this time over surging Xavier in overtime on Wednesday night at the Garden.
On more than one occasion, St. John’s coach Rick Pitino has called Ejiofor the team’s “best player.” He said the Red Storm’s grit and work ethic started with Ejiofor’s example.
“There was a one-man club, and then Sadiku [Ibine Ayo] joined Zuby and then Deivon [Smith] joined those two,” Pitino said earlier this month. “Then Sim [Simeon Wilcher] joined, and everybody's joining Zuby’s club of incredible work ethic . . . It starts out with a one-man band and now they have a very large band.”
“My role last year was pretty different from the role that I have this year of being a more effective leader of the group,” Ejiofor said. “I try to be a more vocal leader on the court for the rest of the guys. I’ve always been a leader by example. But [I’m] coming out of my comfort zone and being able to be vocal.”
Even if one were just considering the leap in performance, Ejiofor's transformation would be inspirational. His scoring average is up more than 10 points per game. His rebounding is up more than five.
“That’s a testament to the amount of work I put in and . . . [Pitino’s] player development sessions helped,” Ejiofor said. “This year, I was just going to come in with the utmost confidence in my game to do the things I know I’m capable of doing.”
Primarily a rim protector last season, he now has the speed and athleticism to defend any player on any part of the court. When St. John’s turned up the defensive pressure late against the Musketeers, it switched on every screen and Ejiofor often was man-to-man against guards.
“The other thing that makes them just really unique is [forward] Aaron Scott and Zuby, when they switch,” Xavier coach Sean Miller said. “It's hard to switch a center onto a guard. [Ejiofor] is a five-man and he can do that . . . It really took us out of a lot of things that we were able to do earlier in the game.”
St. John’s is 17-3, its best record through 20 games since it was 17-3 in 1989-90. The Red Storm and Marquette are tied atop the Big East at 8-1, St. John's best conference start since it was 8-1 in the 1998-99 season. And it would be hard to argue that Ejiofor hasn’t been the team’s MVP.
Ejiofor is a remarkable guy having a remarkable season in what’s been a remarkable 2024-25.
Red Storm hoping to get Smith back
St. John’s will come off a six-day break on Tuesday when it faces Georgetown in a Big East game at Capital One Arena in Washington. The Red Storm have to hope starting guard Deivon Smith will be ready to return from the right shoulder injury that has hampered him since his collision with Wooga Poplar in the Jan. 11 win over Villanova at the Garden.
Pitino has said the Red Storm are far better with Smith in the lineup, and the numbers bear that out. In the two games he missed, they averaged 4.2 fewer points and 5.2 fewer rebounds and committed 2.4 more turnovers.
Smith got a second cortisone injection early last week and will have had nine days of recovery time before St. John’s plays the Hoyas.
Headed for main draw?
The Red Storm look on track to not only play in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019 but to be placed in the main draw — the round of 64 — for the first time since 2015. Bracketmatrix.com tracks the many websites that do projections for the 68-team field and, entering play Saturday, St. John’s was in all 73 examined. The average seeding for them was a No. 7.
Among the most-trafficked sites, ESPN.com and FoxSports.com have the Red Storm as a No. 6 and CBSSports.com has them as a No. 8.
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.
