An entire generation has not experienced a St. John’s season like this.
Wednesday night’s win over Butler clinched a share of the Big East title for the first time in 33 years for the Red Storm, who continue to reach new heights in Rick Pitino’s second year as head coach.
St. John’s is ranked No. 7 in the nation, its highest standing in the AP poll since 1991-92. This is the first time it has won 25 games in a season since 1999-00 while the 16 Big East wins are the most in program history.
Meager consolation for Pitino and Co.
“I just told the guys, ‘We didn’t come here to share anything.’ We have our goals,” Pitino said. “We came to win this thing. We said it weeks ago and it’s in our hands right now. We have two games to win it and we’ll see what happens.”
St. John’s has not won the Big East outright since 1984-85, which has put the program on the precipice of a new golden age — one that has not been experienced since the days of Lou Carnesecca, Chris Mullin, and Mark Jackson.
“No celebration. We haven’t won anything yet,” star guard RJ Luis said. “It feels good to have part of it clinched, but like Coach Pitino said, ‘I don’t want to share it and the team doesn’t want to share it.’ We have put a lot of work in this season.”
With Creighton 2.5 games back of St. John’s in the Big East, one win in St. John’s final two regular-season games clinches the outright regular-season title and wraps up the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament.
Their first chance to wrap it up comes on Saturday afternoon (2:15 p.m. ET) at Madison Square Garden against Seton Hall for what will be senior day.
“We get to sell out Madison Square Garden; our fans have been great,” Pitino said. “There won’t be a whole lot of celebration. We’ll celebrate, certainly, if we can do it on Saturday, but we have to get ready for Marquette.”
Amongst those prospective celebrations might be a bit of awkwardness. Guard Kadary Richmond will try to help St. John’s win the Big East against his old team, which he transferred from in May.
“I wish it was anybody else,” Richmond said earlier this week. “I did a lot of good things over there. I got a lot of good relationships with some of their players still. Celebrating in front of them and all that stuff wouldn’t be on my to-do list, but it will be done.”
