The Red Storm have a business trip to San Diego.
St. John’s earned the 5-seed in the East Region at the 2026 NCAA Tournament. They will start their March Madness run against the 12-seed Northern Iowa in the first round at Viejas Center on Friday. The tip-off time and network assignment will be announced later tonight.
This will be the Red Storm’s second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, and their 32nd overall in program history. Before this season, St. John’s had not reached consecutive Big Dances
since 1999 and 2000.
Meanwhile, their opponents this week have waited a decade to return to the NCAA Tournament. Spearheaded by longtime head coach Ben Jacobsen, Northern Iowa won four games in four days in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament to clinch a spot in the field of 68 for the first time since 2016. The 11-seed Panthers knocked off 6-seed Texas on a half-court heave by Paul Jesperson at the buzzer, then fell to 3-seed Texas A&M in a heartbreaking double overtime loss in which they blew an 12-point lead in the final minute of regulation.
No region is more daunting than the Red Storm’s. Including Rick Pitino, five elite head coaches make up the 16-team quadrant, including number one overall seed Duke’s Jon Scheyer, 3-seed Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, and 2-seed Connecticut’s Dan Hurley.
The narratives in the Johnnies’ sub-region are endless. Awaiting them in the second round is a potential date with 4-seed Kansas, who defeated the Johnnies in their only postseason meeting in the 1952 National Championship game. This would also be a marquee coaching battle between Rick Pitino and Bill Self, and the first time Zuby Ejiofor faces his former team. The Garland, Texas native originally played with the Jayhawks as a freshman in the 2022-23 season before transferring to St. John’s.
St. John’s punched their March Madness ticket on Saturday night when they blew out UConn to win their second straight and fifth-ever Big East Tournament championship. It was the first time a Big East program won back-to-back conference tournament titles since Villanova completed a three-peat in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and it marked the first time ever that a Big East program won both outright regular season and tournament titles in successive seasons.
Under Rick Pitino, St. John’s has snapped many droughts, but they are still looking to get off the second weekend schneid. The Red Storm have not played in the Sweet Sixteen since 1999, when they advanced to the Elite Eight. As the 2-seed in the West Region last season, St. John’s won their first NCAA Tournament game in a quarter-century after knocking off 15-seed Omaha in the first round, but they were unceremoniously upset by 10-seed Arkansas in the round of 32.
