For UConn, St. John’s ‘grown men’ proved to be an insurmountable matchup at The Garden

NEW YORK — You can watch teams play on TV, pour over metrics, compare schedules and scores. But sooner or later, they show up on the same court and often present a different picture than one imagined. All the analysis is rendered meaningless.

So it was when UConn and St. John’s staged their awaited showdown at Madison Square Garden. Dan Hurley looked out at Zuby Ejiofor, Bryce Hopkins and Dillon Mitchell and saw “grown-ass men,” he said, with a characteristic choice of words.

“Curfew is 5 a.m., guys,” Rick Pitino joked, as his grown men walked off the podium after St. John’s 81-72 victory before 19,812, the vast majority of fans clad in red, Friday night. The Johnnies are ranked 22nd, headed upward, the Huskies third, and will take a step back. From the outset, this was a matchup that spelled nothing but trouble for UConn and its 18-game winning streak.

St. John’s rocks UConn men in the Garden, 81-72; Huskies 18-game win streak comes to end

“We’ve been a cat with nine lives a couple of times,” Hurley said, “so there was not a feeling on the team and the staff that you’re indestructible. We knew this was going to be a hard game to win, but the manner in which we lost was frustrating.”

The Huskies shot 54.7 percent from the floor, made nine of 19 shots from 3-point range, numbers that normally suggest a win. But they fell prey to an old nemesis and his old tactic: Pitino and his pressure defense. Then there was also a recent issue that became more troubling: Missed free throws. No squeaking by this time.

The foul line problems (5 for 12), typically a mental/confidence thing, figure to work themselves out. But Pitino’s pressure isn’t going away, nor is St. John’s. That bigger, older, more-experienced front court will be there when the Red Storm comes to Hartford in less than three weeks, and again in the Big East Tournament.

Pitino, since coming to St. John’s 2 1/2 seasons ago, operates more similarly to the days he ran the Celtics. He handpicks experienced players in the transfer portal and molds a new team every year, and he has always been a master manager of seasons, driving steady improvement from his team until it is ready to play its best basketball later than sooner. It now looks like he’s hit on a strong combination this time.

That should be one of the takeaways here. UConn and St. John’s both assembled strong nonconference schedules. UConn, impressively, went 5-1 against power teams, losing only to No. 1 Arizona. St. John’s took its lumps, losing four, but as the calendar turned to 2026, the Red Storm turned a corner and have now won nine in a row to tie the Huskies in the Big East, with the head-to-head tie-breaker in hand.

Conference championships, metrics and seedings are only parts of the championship process. It’s most important to focus on playing your best basketball in March. UConn, as much or more than any school in the country, has a history of “out of nowhere” championship runs. The last championship, year before last, was the exception in terms of its dominance.

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St. John’s exposed that this UConn team, 22-2 record notwithstanding, has work to do. Pitino hosted Silas Demary Jr. for a visit last offseason, but UConn got him. His play at point guard, at both ends of the floor, has made a big difference for the Huskies all season, while Pitino was frustrated with what he was getting at that position.

In recent games, Dylan Darling, a pesky kid who’d played at Idaho State and Washington State, has adjusted to the bright lights and the big city. He came off the bench and really delivered, nine critical points, as St. John’s took control in  the second half. Meanwhile, Demary, the league leader in assists and assists-to-turnover ratio, was harried into nine turnovers, though in keeping with the hard-to-fathom stats of this game, also had 18 points and seven rebounds, nearly carrying UConn all the way back from an 11-point deficit.

The game lived up to its billing, defied its stats, and the eye test was easy. St. John’s imposed its will on UConn in a way we haven’t seen this year. Pitino gradually ratchets up the pressure as a game wears on, and on Friday made nearly every in-bounds pass an adventure for UConn. Though they only forced two of UConn’s 15 turnovers this way, one coming at a critical moment in the stretch, the cumulative effect was telling.

“I probably had 15 times it could have been a five-second count on them and we didn’t get the call,” Pitino said. “But it wears you out. A lot of times, the advantage of the press is, physically they’re trying to get open five seconds and it tires you, it wears on your rebounding, it wears on your passing, so from rebounding and turnovers and assists, we did a great job tonight.”

Despite the shooting percentage, UConn had no rhythm on offense, largely because so many of their possessions started with difficultly just securing the possession.

“It disrupts your ability to do what you want to do offensively,” Hurley said. “I don’t think we turned it over because of their pressure, I think we turned it over because we lost our (bleeping) mind.”

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The Huskies just weren’t ball-tough, and were minus-6 in rebounding. The hyped-up individual matchup at center went this way: Ejiofor had 21 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and three blocks. Tarris Reed Jr., too often flipping the ball up from the paint instead of going strong to  the rim, had 12 points, 5 for 10 from the floor, with six rebounds. Ejiofor got eight points at the line, going 8 for 10; Reed was 2 for 6.

Braylon Mullins, UConn’s star freshmen, scored eight early, but St. John’s frontcourt size asserted itself and he wasn’t able to get off many more shots, finishing with 11. And another thing metrics don’t always tell you: How much depth a team really has is determined by its opponent. The Huskies led 16-10 when Hurley started subbing, and the Red Storm went on a 9-0 run. St. John’s reserves outscored UConn’s 15-6.

So this game sends Hurley’s Huskies back to the lab. Championships are not won on Feb. 6; for historical context, UConn lost three times to Pitino’s pressure at Louisville in 2014, then went on a magic ride in the NCAA Tournament.

What we did learn on Feb. 6 is that this won’t be a joy ride for UConn, there is least one formidable obstacle in its path, and how well the Huskies rise up for the rematch in Hartford on Feb. 25 will tell us much more about March.