St. John's suffers historic 72-40 loss to UConn, loses lead in Big East

Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News on Feb 25, 2026

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The St. John’s win streak ended in extreme fashion. And the Red Storm’s path to a Big East championship just got more complicated.

St. John’s was thoroughly outmatched on both ends in Wednesday night’s 72-40 loss to UConn in Hartford, Conn. – a sobering defeat that dropped the Johnnies back into second place in the conference standings.

No. 15 St. John’s missed its final 24 shots; surrendered an 18-0 run in the first half and a 16-0 run in the second half; and finished just 11 of 56 (20%) from the field at raucous PeoplesBank Arena as its 13-game winning streak crashed to a sudden end.

No. 6 UConn (16-2 in conference play) now leads the Big East by a half-game over St. John’s (15-2) with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season.

The 32-point defeat marked the Red Storm’s most lopsided loss to UConn in the history of the series.

At the center of UConn’s dominant victory was star center Tarris Reed Jr., who erupted for 20 points on 9-of-14 shooting, 11 rebounds and six blocks.

Reed won the individual battle between big-time big men over Zuby Ejiofor, who managed only six points on 2 of 5 shooting with four rebounds for St. John’s.

St. John’s entered Wednesday with a chance to all but wrap up a Big East regular season title, having defeated UConn, 81-72, on Feb. 6 at Madison Square Garden in the teams’ first meeting of the season.

The Red Storm won that game behind Ejiofor’s 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, along with a high-pressure defense that forced 15 UConn turnovers.

A win Wednesday would have given St. John’s a two-game advantage in the loss column and clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Huskies.

But UConn looked like a different team Wednesday than the one that couldn’t contain the Red Storm’s physicality at the Garden less than three weeks ago.

UConn outscored St. John’s in the paint, 42-12. It scored 14 fastbreak points to the Red Storm’s zero.

And the Huskies committed only five turnovers – 10 fewer than in the previous meeting.

UConn punched first with behind an early 9-0 run, but St. John’s battled back behind 3-pointers from Bryce Hopkins and Ian Jackson to cut its deficit to 13-11.

That’s the closest that St. John’s would get.

UConn rattled off 18 consecutive points from there – a game-wrecking run that included numerous Huskies highlights.

Reed scored on a dunk on one end, then came up with a steal on the other, leading to a wide-open 3-pointer by standout freshman Braylon Mullins.

Mullins later capped the surge with another 3-pointer, putting the Huskies up 31-11 with 6:37 remaining.

Ejiofor finally ended UConn’s run by splitting a pair of free throws, snapping a seven-minute, 23-second scoreless drought for St. John’s. The Johnnies missed 12 consecutive field goals as the Huskies pulled away.

UConn led at halftime, 41-26, largely on the strength of Reed’s 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting.

Ejiofor managed just one point on 0-of-2 shooting in the first half, while fellow frontcourt cog Dillon Mitchell was held scoreless in 18 minutes. St. John’s managed only 10 points in the paint in the first half.

The second half was even more lopsided as Connecticut rode a 16-0 run to a 61-31 advantage.

St. John’s went scoreless for 10 minutes, 47 seconds during that ice-cold stretch until Hopkins made a free throw. A lay-up by Ejiofor with 17:28 remaining in the second half proved to be the Johnnies’ final field.

“Don’t give them life right now,” Huskies head coach Dan Hurley said in a televised huddle. “Beat their a-s!”

St. John’s still owns the tiebreaker over UConn because it swept fifth-place Creighton while the Huskies split the Bluejays. Creighton is the highest-ranked team that St. John’s and UConn have both played twice.

But that could change Saturday when St. John’s hosts third-place Villanova, whom UConn swept.

The Red Storm has the harder remaining schedule and three games left to play.

UConn has two games remaining: at home against fourth-place Seton Hall (19-9; 9-8 vs. Big East) and on the road versus Marquette (10-18; 5-12 vs. Big East).

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