The Red Storm continue their climb back up the polls. St. John’s jumped three spots to No. 22 in the latest AP top 25 men’s basketball poll released on Monday afternoon, overtaking mid-major darling Miami (OH), Louisville, and Alabama, the latter of whom fell out of the rankings altogether. The Johnnies were also ranked No. 22 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.
After returning to the
top 25 last week, the Red Storm routed Butler in their only game last week. Despite playing and winning only one game, they received help in moving up three spots, thanks to the teams in front of them suffering blowout defeats. Then-no. 23 Alabama were clobbered on the road against Florida on Saturday and tumbled out of the rankings for the first time this season, while then-no. 20 Louisville dropped four spots after they were shredded by 31 points by Duke last Monday.
Undefeated Miami (OH) won both of their games last week to improve to a 22-0 record, but they barely scraped past NET 187th-ranked UMass in one of those contests and only moved up a single spot.
For a second straight week, St. John’s and UConn are the only Big East teams to appear in the rankings, setting the stage for a ranked-on-ranked matchup between the conference’s top two teams at Madison Square Garden on Friday night (8 p.m., FOX). The Huskies dropped one spot to No. 3 despite a 2-0 week, as Michigan overtook them for the No. 2 spot following wins over top-ten teams Nebraska and Michigan State. Villanova also only received 15 votes in this week’s poll, the sixth-most among unranked teams.
St. John’s will face the DePaul Blue Demons (12-10, 4-7 Big East) at WinTrust Arena in Chicago on Tuesday night. Tip-off is scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern, and the game can be streamed on Peacock.
