St. John’s blew the remainder of their preseason equity in their infuriating 78-66 defeat to Kentucky on Saturday. They surrendered a seven-point halftime lead and were flat-out dominated in the second half by a Wildcats team criticized for their inability to play physically in previous marquee games this season.
With a 7-4 record and their best wins coming against Baylor and Ole Miss, the Red Storm will certainly lose the number next to their name in Monday’s AP poll. Any thought of attaining a high
seed and embarking on a deep tournament run seems like a pipe dream right now, and missing the Big Dance entirely is not out of the question.
But the only way out is through.
The walls feel like they’re closing in on St. John’s, and many fans in New York are ready to air out their grievances at Festivus, but there are 20 more regular-season games remaining until the Big East Tournament (St. John’s are favored in almost all of them) and plenty of experts still peg the Red Storm as one of the top three Big East teams. They cannot rebuild that goodwill in Tuesday night’s matchup against Harvard, but they can bounce back from their miserable trip to Atlanta and carry energy into their New Year’s Eve matchup versus Georgetown.
Game information
Who: St. John’s Red Storm (7-4) vs. Harvard Crimson (6-6)
When: Tuesday, December 23, 2025, 6:00 p.m.
Where: Carnesecca Arena, Queens, New York
TV: FS1
Radio: ESPN New York 880 / 1050
Series History: St. John’s has won all four meetings, including their last matchup on November 30, 2024 by a final score of 77-64.
KenPom Predicted Score: St. John’s to win 84-63 (97 percent chance of win)
Injury news
There is no injury news to report for St. John’s entering Tuesday night’s game.
What to watch for in the Storm
Fairytale of New York – If St. John’s is going to build its momentum, they must protect home base and win in the city with cars big as bars and rivers of gold. The Red Storm have a 24-1 record at Madison Square Garden and Carnesecca Arena dating back to last season.
Snowed In – The stalwart St. John’s frontcourt is doing a shockingly poor job on the defensive glass. So far, they are ranked 315th nationally in offensive rebound percentage allowed (35.6%). The Red Storm were outrebounded by 11 in their loss to Kentucky, and only hauled in 12 total rebounds to the Wildcats’ 10 offensive rebounds in the second half.
Jack’ Frost – Ian Jackson was the only St. John’s player to have a decent outing against Kentucky, scoring 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting and only allowing one turnover. While Jackson still isn’t an effective distributor, doling out only 7 assists in his last 3 games, the Bronx native is gaining confidence with each game, and his playing time should be adjusted accordingly.
Scouting the Crimson
Midway through Tommy Amaker’s 19th season in Cambridge, Harvard is a frisky team in the Ivy League looking to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 11 years. The Crimson hover around the mean with a KenPom ranking of 189th entering Monday. Other than nearly upsetting Penn State on the road, they’ve had a pretty unadventurous start to their 2025-26 campaign.
Harvard is led by sophomore and former four-star recruit Robert Hinton, who won the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award a season ago. Standing at 6-foot-5, the big-bodied guard leads the team with 16.8 points per game and ranks second on the Crimson in rebounding with 5.3 boards collected per game. Although Hinton is a non-threat from three (23.3% this season), he can score in bunches by attacking the rim. The Los Angeles native already has two 30-point games this season and set a new career-high of 35 points against UMass without making a triple.
Sophomore guard Tey Barbour acts as a foil to Hinton’s slasher, filling up the basket as the Crimson’s go-to three-point threat. The 6-foot-4 guard is averaging 11.9 points and 5.8 rebounds, shooting 45.9% from the field and leading all Ivy League players with a 41.7% three-point clip.
Chandler Pigge is the only senior in the rotation and can guard multiple positions standing at 6-foot-5. The guard from Houston, Texas ranks second on the Crimson in scoring with 13.8 points per game, shooting 44.8% from the field and 30.8% from three. Pigge led all Crimson players with 15 points (5-of-10 FG), seven rebounds, and five assists when Harvard faced St. John’s last season.
Starting in the middle as a small-ball center is 6-foot-7 junior Thomas Batties II, who averages 10.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks per game. Batties makes up for his lack of size by stretching the floor as a serious three-point threat, shooting 21-of-38 from deep to start this season (55.3%). That figure certainly isn’t sustainable, though Batties shot 38.2% from three last season, if you want an indication of how he fares with a greater sample size.
Prediction
The Red Storm the risk of coming out flat playing a mid-major opponent this close to Christmas, but that shouldn’t matter against a Harvard team severely lacking in frontcourt size. Ejiofor, Mitchell, and Hopkins can leave their disappointing performance against Kentucky behind them and feast on Tuesday night.
St. John’s wins, 86-63.
