Saturday’s game wasn’t pretty for St. John’s, but to head coach Rick Pitino, it was important.

On a night their high-powered offense was uncharacteristically ineffective, the Red Storm still found a way to defeat Ole Miss, 63-58, at Madison Square Garden — on the strength of their embattled defense, no less.

“We have not played defense like this before,” Pitino said. “We needed a game like this, because we’ve been playing in the 90s. We needed a meat-grinder game to show the guys when their offense is not there, they can still win the game. And that’s what happened tonight.”

Saturday’s game was the first for No. 23 St. John’s (5-3) since it faltered defensively during a 1-2 trip to Las Vegas for the Players Era Championship last month.

After the second of those defeats — an 85-74 loss to Auburn — senior forward Zuby Ejiofor addressed his teammates, stressing the need for defensive improvement.

Ejiofor heeded his own message Saturday, recording a career-high eight blocks, including six in the first half.

That set the tone for a St. John’s defense that limited Ole Miss to 20-of-55 (36%) shooting, including 2-of-16 (13%) on 3-pointers, and forced 20 turnovers.

“I always just try to be a presence, especially on that end,” said Ejiofor, who also had 15 points, nine rebounds and three steals while becoming the fourth St. John’s player to record eight blocks in a game.

“Start off on the defensive end. I tell the guys all the time, defense was our bread and butter last year. We didn’t shoot the ball well at all today, but the game was won at the defensive end. I feel like we wanted it a little bit more.”

St. John’s (5-3) needed a big defensive effort because it shot just 17-of-50 (34%) from the field and committed 20 turnovers of its own.

After a Sadiku Ibine Ayo 3-pointer gave St. John’s a 51-37 lead with 8:06 left in the second half, the Johnnies went scoreless for more than three minutes.

Ole Miss answered with a 10-0 run to make it a four-point game with less than five minutes remaining, but St. John’s never relinquished the lead.

St. John’s did not score a basket in the game’s final four minutes but went 8-of-10 on free throws down the stretch.

“We were nervous tonight. I sensed that they were nervous because there were such high expectations and they wanted to win so badly that they were a little tight offensively. But they needed their defense to carry them,” Pitino said.

“As much as there were so many mistakes at the end of the game, we made them take bad shots at the end of the game.”

A.J. Storr, who spent his 2022-23 freshman season at St. John’s before transferring after Pitino’s arrival, entered Saturday as Ole Miss’ leading scorer, but he managed just two points on 0-of-6 shooting.

Storrs heard boos all night from a Garden crowd of 14,799.

“That’s the best defense we’ve played against all year,” Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard said, adding, “I feel like we just played one of the best teams in the country.”

St. John’s opened the season ranked No. 5, but it has since fallen to No. 23 after ranked losses to Alabama, Iowa State and Auburn.

The Johnnies now have a week off until next Saturday’s game at the Garden against Iona, where Pitino coached for three seasons before taking the St. John’s job in 2023.

“We have the highest of expectations, every single one of us,” Ejiofor said. “We haven’t started the season out how we really wanted to start it off, but it’s a work in progress.”

https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/12/06/st-johns-ole-miss-college-basketball-rick-pitino-zuby-ejofor/