St. John’s Zuby Ejiofor, left, celebrates as Zuby Ejiofor holds the tournament trophy after an NCAA … [+] college basketball game against Creighton in the championship of the Big East Conference tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

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As St. John’s men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino stood on the Madison Square Garden floor at 9:16 Saturday night, he looked around and shouted.

“Father Rock!,” Pitino said.

The Red Storm had just defeated Creighton, 82-66, in the Big East tournament championship game, and Pitino couldn’t find Father Richard Rock, the campus minster for athletics at St. John’s. No one else could locate Rock, either. The St. John’s contingent was so concerned, they had the public address announcer tell Rock he was needed. Turns out, Rock was using the bathroom.

Three minutes later, Rock climbed the ladder and snipped the last strand of the net, just as Pitino had wanted. At 9:20, Rock held the net high above his head, to much applause.

“It was great,” said Rock, who delivers a prayer to the team before each St. John’s game. “It was so exciting the whole season. They deserve it for all the hard work they put in.”

Rock has worked at St. John’s since 2012, and nothing could compare with this. Many St. John’s fans and alumni have waited much longer. In fact, a quarter century has passed since St. John’s was this relevant nationally and in New York City.

The Red Storm (30-4) won their first outright Big East regular season title since 1985, going 18-2 in league games. They now have their first conference tournament championship since 2000, which was also the last time they won a game in the NCAA tournament. With their ninth consecutive victory and 19th win in the past 20 games, the Red Storm are looking to snap that streak when the NCAAs begin this week.

St. John’s is likely to be a No. 2 or No. 3 seed when the NCAA field is announced on Sunday and play its first round game on Thursday in Providence, R.I., the city where Pitino first burst onto the national scene for leading Providence College to the 1987 Final Four. Nearly 40 years later, Pitino is still going strong, making St. John’s a team no one wants to play in just his second season at the school.

Pitino, 72, became the first coach in Big East history to lead multiple teams to conference tournament titles. He was Louisville’s coach when the Cardinals won Big East titles in 2009, 2012 and 2013. Still, while he said he’s proud of those victories, Saturday’s win meant more.

“There’s an extra special feeling being a New Yorker who grew up on 26th Street and grew up in Queens and then Long Island,” Pitino said. “For me, it’s just extra, extra special because I share this with every fan that takes great pride in what we accomplished this year.”

With noted film maker Spike Lee sitting courtside and former Major League Baseball star Alex Rodriguez sitting behind the baseline, the game had a big-time atmosphere. Still, the Red Storm got off to a slow start for the second consecutive night. They trailed Marquette by 15 points eight minutes into Friday’s semifinal before turning things around and cruising to a 79-63 victory. On Saturday, they fell behind by eight points within the first seven minutes. St. John’s didn’t take its first lead until going up 43-41 on Vincent Iwuchukwu’s hook shot over 7-foot-1 Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner with 11:56 remaining. Creighton guard Steven Ashworth then made a 3-pointer for a 1-point lead.

From there, it was all St. John’s, as the Red Storm outscored the Blue Jays 39-22 the rest of the way and improved to 12-0 at MSG this season. St. John’s made 17 of its final 19 field goals and shot 71.9% from the floor in the second half. It was by far the Red Storm’s best offensive stretch of the season. The Red Storm are known for their relentless defense and are first in analyst Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric. But they entered the game making just 44.9% of their field goals, ranking 164th of 364 Division 1 teams, including 30.0% on 3-pointers, good for 341st in the nation.

“I would have guessed at halftime that 66 points might be enough to win the game, the way both teams were defending,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said.

St. John’s forward RJ Luis, the conference’s Player of the Year, was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. He finished with 29 points on 11 of 18 shooting, including 27 in the second half when he made 10 of 13 field goals, connected on all three 3-point attempts and went 4-for-4 on free throws.

“I think that was just beast mode being beast mode,” St. John’s guard Kadary Richmond said of Luis’s second half performance. “He got in foul trouble in the first half, so there was no doubt in my mind that he was coming out to be aggressive and do anything to get a win.”

Said Luis: “This has been the most emotional, happiest week of my 22 years of existence.”

Richmond added 12 points and 12 rebounds, while Zuby Ejiofor had 20 points. Richmond and Ejiofor were first and second team All-Big East during the regular season, respectively, and they both were named to the All-Tournament team, too.

Richmond transferred to St. John’s this season after four years at Seton Hall, where he averaged 15.7 points per game last season. Luis and Ejiofor transferred two years ago before Pitino’s first season from Massachusetts and Kansas, respectively. Luis averaged 11.5 points per game in his lone season at UMass, while Ejiofor only averaged 1.2 points in 5.1 minutes per game at Kansas.

While Richmond was the No. 1 ranked transfer last season, per 247Sports, and received a significant Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deal to join the Red Storm, Pitino said Luis and Ejiofor are “very underpaid.” He joked that both players will be asking St. John’s Matt Abdelmassih for better NIL deals.

Still, even though St. John’s has seen an increase in NIL funding since Pitino arrived, thanks to the largesse of billionaire Mike Repole and other boosters, Pitino called it “nonsense” to suggest the Red Storm are succeeding just because of their NIL coffers.

“You build a team by making sure you understand the whole puzzle of what goes into it,” Pitino said. “People just mischaracterize the NIL and why St. John’s has been built. St. John’s didn’t get built by NIL. St. John’s got built with character of the players, and certainly we are excited to have these young men.”

Saturday’s victory was the fourth Big East tournament title for St. John’s, joining the 1983, 1986 and 2000 teams. But this year’s squad is the first in St. John’s history to win an outright regular season and tournament championship in the same season, placing the Red Storm in school lore.

Still, Pitino was gracious afterward, mentioning former legendary coach Lou Carnesecca, who died in December at 99 years old, as well as ex-St. John’s stars such as John Warren, Joe DePre, Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson and Walter Berry.

“I’m just a caretaker of what all those guys built, and I’m a proud caretaker of that,” Pitino said.

Pitino later spoke about his humility, something he admitted he didn’t have earlier in his career, and said he lives in what he calls the “precious present.” As for St. John’s chances in the NCAA tournament?

“I don’t consider ourselves that people should be aware of us,” Pitino said. “I’ve lost in the first round. I’ve been to seven Final Fours. We’ll take it one game at a time, one possession at a time.”

At 10:06 Saturday night, Pitino was finally done with his media obligations. He put on his black coat and headed out to celebrate with friends. On Thursday, Pitino will be coaching his sixth college team in the NCAA tournament, setting a record that seems unbreakable. During Pitino’s illustrious career, he’s had some rocky times, most notably when Louisville fired him in 2017. But he kept coaching for two seasons in Greece before Iona College gave him another shot at the college level in 2020.

Three years later, after leading the Gaels to two NCAA tournament appearances, Pitino was announced as St. John’s coach. Now in his second season, he has St. John’s back at the top of the Big East. He’s in his home city, doing what he loves at a school that means so much to him, and vice versa.

“What he brought was resilience and confidence,” Rock said. “He’s a man of integrity, and he had total respect for all the athletes. He really did. He has challenges, but he always has respect.”