St. John's Daniss Jenkins a second-team all-Big East selection
St. John's Red Storm guard Daniss Jenkins directs his teammates against the Georgetown Hoyas in the second half of an NCAA Big East men’s basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, March 9, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Daniss Jenkins’ excellent season for St. John’s has brought rewards. When the Big East announced its all-conference teams on Sunday, the 6-4 guard was tabbed as a second-teamer.
Jenkins, a grad student, transferred from Iona for this season after Gaels coach Rick Pitino was hired to head the Red Storm. His 14.7-point average and 5.5 assists per game are both team highs for a St. John’s squad that finished the regular season at 19-12 and 11-9 in the conference and earned the No. 5 seed and a quarterfinal bye for the coming week’s Big East Tournament.
St. John’s will play No. 4 Seton Hall at the Garden on Thursday at 2:30 p.m.
Jenkins on Saturday had 23 points and seven assists in an 86-78 win over Georgetown to give St. John’s its 11th conference victory, the most since it had 12 in 2010-11.
“He is a great player, one of the premier guards in the country and an NBA talent,” Pitino said afterward. “I can't say enough at how proud I am of him. He killed it at Iona. Now he's killing it at St. John's. And wherever he goes, he'll kill it because he's got the stuff to make it happen.”
There were four unanimous selections by the coaches to the all-Big East first team: Marquette’s Tyler Kolek, UConn’s Tristen Newton, Providence’s Devin Carter and Creighton’s Baylor Scheierman. They were joined on the first team by Seton Hall’s Kadary Richmond and UConn’s Cam Spencer.
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.
