No. 6 UConn attempts to thwart No. 15 St. John’s winning ways
The Big East regular-season title will hardly be settled, but St. John's or UConn can improve its chances at getting the top seed at the conference tournament when the rivals convene Wednesday in Hartford, Conn.
The 15th-ranked Red Storm hope to exit with a 1 1/2-game lead for first place while the sixth-ranked Huskies hope to end the night with a half-game lead.
When the teams met in New York on Feb. 6, the Red Storm pulled away in the final minutes of an 81-72 victory.
St. John's (22-5, 15-1 Big East) will attempt to push its winning streak to 14 games. The winning streak is the longest since the school won 19 straight Dec. 22, 1984-Feb. 23, 1985, a stretch that included a school-record 14-game conference winning streak.
Reserve guard Dylan Darling led the Red Storm in scoring for the second time in three games when he scored 17 on Saturday in a dominant 81-52 home win over Creighton.
"We're going to have to be engaged in that the whole time and be prepared," Darling said about facing UConn.
Red Storm forward Bryce Hopkins contributed 15 points and 10 rebounds for his second straight double-double to earn Big East player of the week honors after also getting 23 and 10 boards in a gritty 76-70 win at Marquette.
The Red Storm allowed their fourth-fewest points in a conference game in three seasons under Pitino and held Creighton to 32.1% shooting, marking the fourth time during the winning streak an opponent shot under 40%.
"It's just all about preparation now," St. John's forward Dillon Mitchell said after collecting 10 rebounds. "We played a great defensive game today, and we're going to need another next week.
"Now it's just about being consistent, (doing) the work on it (to) get better at it."
UConn (25-3, 15-2) is attempting to avoid four straight losses to St. John's for the first time since dropping 17 consecutive meetings Feb. 11, 1981-Jan. 10, 1989.
The Huskies saw their 18-game overall winning streak stopped in the first meeting when they committed 15 turnovers to negate shooting 54.7% and hitting 9 of 19 3-point attempts.
After the St. John's' game, UConn beat Butler and Georgetown, then took a 91-84 home loss to Creighton a week ago. UConn coach Dan Hurley referred to the Huskies' defense in the latter game "as a joke".
UConn responded to Hurley's criticism with a 73-63 win at Villanova on Saturday. The Huskies led by as many as 21 and held the Wildcats to 40.7% shooting from the field, marking their best showing since limiting Xavier to 36.7% in a 92-60 win on Feb. 3.
"We played elite-level defense, and we were pretty sharp on offense when we got shots on goal," Hurley said of the Saturday performance. "Obviously the turnover situation reared its ugly head, but I just thought we rebounded the ball, we guarded, we played offense at a high level and our depth kicked in. That's kind of like bulletproof basketball right there."
Alex Karaban scored 12 points against Villanova after getting held to two in the Creighton loss. Tarris Reed Jr. added 11 points and six rebounds, helping the Huskies to a 37-24 rebounding edge.
"For the rest of the way here, it's like, St. John's is not gonna lose -- I imagine -- any more than two games, obviously they're coming to us next," Hurley said. "So we can't afford to lose another game in the regular season in the Big East if we want to win the league."