HARTFORD, Conn. — It was the kind of victory that can give a team ultimate belief, because it might be the definitive evidence, that it can win a national championship.
It was also the kind of loss that can kill a team’s hopes and spirit for the remainder of the season.
What sixth-ranked Connecticut did to No. 15 St. John’s at PeoplesBank Arena on Wednesday night was more than just a record-setting 32-point evisceration. It was an emphatic socking, the likes of which the Red Storm might not shake off the effects from for weeks, if not until next season. The Huskies’ 72-40 vaporizing was arguably the most impressive game played by any team almost four months into this brilliant 2025-26 college basketball campaign.
“What we did today as a rebounding team, as a defensive team, as a team that looked like we did offensively at times in the championship years,” Huskies coach Dan Hurley told CBS Sports outside the locker room. “Twenty assists, four turnovers, really, because we took a we took a turnover late in the game. Out-rebounded a team that kicks ass on the glass.”
Ironically, it was all of a week ago when UConn fell 91-84 at home to mediocre Creighton to take its second loss in four games, bookending that with the 81-72 defeat against St. John’s at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 6, when the Johnnies snapped the Huskies’ 18-game winning streak.
“The defense has been a joke,” Hurley said after that loss to Creighton. “Our defense has been so bad. We’ve been playing with fire.”
On Wednesday, Hurley’s Huskies tamed the flame and used it to burn out the will of St. John’s — snapping its 13-game winning streak — and perhaps scorching its chances of doing something of significance over the next month. The Huskies suffocated the Red Storm by doing the near impossible, not allowing a made field goal from the 17:28 mark of the second half until the end of the game.
“This is a rivalry,” Hurley told me, and it was obvious how much pride he felt to win so convincingly with all of the anticipation this game brought. “I’ve got a lot of respect for what they do and the amount of success they’ve had, particularly in Big East play. … It was a must-win game today.”
UConn heating up for March as usual
UConn played like the program’s existence depended on a victory. Credit to assistant Kimani Young, who was assigned the scout, and whose time to get a head-coaching job at the high-major level is overdue.
The Huskies set a program record for their largest win over St. John’s, surpassing the 29-point mark from 1998. They also won a home game over a ranked team by 30-plus points for the first time in school history. The game felt near-over at halftime when it was 41-26. Then it felt violent in the final 10 minutes. It felt personal.
The UConn team looked — not a lot like — but pretty much exactly like the 2023 and 2024 title-winning squads. There’s one eye-opening stat after another attached to this one.
The 32-point loss was the worst by St. John’s as a ranked team since a 35-point loss to St. Bonaventure in 1960.
The Red Storm shot 19.6% on 11-of-56 shooting, the worst shooting performance by any team in Division I this season. It happened because St. John’s made its first two field goals of the second half and then missed 24 in a row, also the worst streak by any team in college basketball.
SJU’s best player, Zuby Ejiofor, was held to one point in the first half while his counterpart, senior big man Tarris Reed Jr., finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds, six blocks and two steals in 31 minutes in what was the best game of his career.
“I’ve never been through that experience,” Ejiofor said, later adding, “tonight was not what I was expecting at all.”
Reed became the third Husky to ever log at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks against a ranked team, joining Donovan Clingan (twice) and Emeka Okafor (three times).
Loss might linger for St. John’s
Adding to the embarrassment for Red Storm coach Rick Pitino, he coached a team to just 40 points, marking the lowest of a career that is 1,224 games deep. The previous low came when he was at Boston University in 1981 and his Terriers managed just 43 on the road against UCLA.
“Give [UConn] all the credit,” Pitino said. “They played a great game. That’s probably only happened to me two times in my career. … So, it’s all on me. I’m very disappointed in our performance offensively, especially sharing the ball, moving the ball. So, it’s all on me, but we’ll get ready for Villanova.”
Rick Pitino takes blame for St. John’s dreadful performance in historic loss to UConn: ‘It’s all on me’
Cameron Salerno
Although Pitino credited UConn and did own the loss, he did not handle himself well in the aftermath, which speaks to how much this result obviously and understandably burns him. Still, Pitino easily could have walked to the press conference room and taken questions for four or five minutes but opted not to — something that the Big East office will not appreciate — and instead gave one statement and took one question from a reporter, totaling less than 1 minute and 15 seconds after one of the two most important Big East games of the season.
“We’re still playing for a championship,” Pitino said. “It doesn’t matter whether you lose by one or 40, the league championship’s still at stake. Obviously, we got to make our corrections and move on.”
The loss looks all the worse coming mere hours after this social media post from Pitino earlier on Wednesday.
The Red Storm’s résumé looks fairly weak in light of this loss by the way. Its only two quality wins are home against UConn (extremely good) and on the road against Villanova (pretty good). At 22-6, the Johnnies are well on their way to earning a single-digit NCAA seed, but it felt like there was a fracture here in Hartford. SJU is now 1-4 against ranked teams this season.
Meantime, UConn 29-12 against AP-ranked teams the last four seasons, the most wins of any team in the sport.
The Huskies look dynasty-good again. The Red Storm need to do more to prove last year wasn’t a one-off pop back into relevancy.
This game was supposed to be for the supremacy of the Big East.
Maybe it was.
And maybe it’s going to result in UConn ascending to the top tier of national title contender beside Duke, Michigan and Arizona, while St. John’s settles into something inferior. Their league records are tied, it’s true, with both at two losses apiece. St. John’s still has three more games left, including next up hosting Villanova in a huge game for seeding and the Big East race.
UConn will finish atop the league if it handles business vs. Seton Hall and at Marquette, both likelihoods.
I asked Hurley if he used any special or different motivation tactics in advance of Wednesday’s historic outcome.
“Nothing,” he said. “Coming out of the Creighton game, we got complacent going into that game. And because we played so well at Creighton, I think maybe I didn’t have the team as ready as I needed to, and it put us in this must-win situation the rest of the way to win the regular season. The team is playing right now like these are elimination games, and it’s a good time of year to play with that level of desperation. The fact that we have to win every game the rest of the way to get at least a piece of the regular season, the Big East has forced us to have to play like playoff Game 7s right now, and I think that’s going to bode well for us the rest of the way.”
Hurley has built up and fortified one of the toughest programs in college basketball. A championship-level outfit that is required to carry over year to year. Teams that operate at that standard aren’t just capable of, but actually provide evidence to the type of supremacy on display Wednesday night.
Just about everyone — Ejiofor included — wants to see the third act in Midtown Manhattan on Saturday, March 14. The Big East championship game. But if we don’t get it, UConn’s win on Wednesday and the aftereffects may well be the reason. The Huskies are the fourth projected No. 1 seed, and it’s hard to see them spoiling that spot until the Big East title game at the absolute earliest.
These teams’ seasons collided in Hartford, and given how violent the impact was, it’s hard to see both going in similar directions the rest of the season.
