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The one-sided nature of the St. John’s-Connecticut rivalry turned last winter.
The Huskies weren’t at the top of the Big East. Their fans didn’t take over the Garden when Dan Hurley’s team took on St. John’s.
And, perhaps most significantly, Rick Pitino and the Johnnies won the two regular-season meetings, rallying for a thrilling win in Storrs, Conn., and manhandling the Huskies at MSG en route to the program’s first outright Big East regular-season crown since 1985.
Both teams loaded up for this season, hitting the transfer portal hard.
They are each viewed as Final Four contenders, adding spice to encounters on Feb. 6 and Feb. 25 that will be appointment viewing.
“There’s certainly a nastiness to when we’re going to play St. John’s, but I don’t think it’s disrespectful,” Connecticut coach Dan Hurley said at the Garden, as the Big East held media day less than two weeks before the start of the regular season. “Like, I’m not disrespectful of Coach [Rick] Pitino and who he is and what he’s accomplished. But there’s definitely a tenacity and tension between the programs.
“Just where St. John’s is at now, who becomes your rivals? People that are threatening you, the threats to what you’re doing, the threats to you winning your championships become your rivals in any sport. Those are really your only rivals, the people that are threats to you being on top.”
UConn (No. 4) was slotted just ahead of St. John’s (No. 5) in the Associated Press preseason rankings.
The Johnnies edged out the Huskies in the Big East poll, receiving seven of 11 first-place votes.
The two coaches make this rivalry — the lone coaches in the league to have won national championships. They have big personalities, are intensely driven and established winners.
Plus, they aren’t going to go out and grab a beer together anytime soon.
“I think they’re both insane,” new Villanova coach and former Pitino assistant Kevin Willard cracked, and he meant it in a positive way.
On Tuesday, Pitino and Hurley didn’t seem to care about where each of their teams were picked in the conference.
Hurley said he let assistant coach Luke Murray fill out his ballot. Asked if he had to remind his players that being voted first doesn’t mean anything, Pitino joked: “I think the one thing they can attest to, when practice ends, none of them think they’re No. 1.”
Pitino doesn’t subscribe to the notion that the Big East will come down to St. John’s and Connecticut, talking up Creighton, Marquette, Villanova, Providence and Georgetown.
Most experts, along with the Big East coaches, disagree.
The Huskies and Johnnies received all 11 first-place votes, and of the 19 players selected to the three all-league teams (including the preseason player of the year honor given to Zuby Ejiofor), nine were from St. John’s and Connecticut. The Huskies also had the preseason freshman of the year, guard Braylon Mullins.
“It’s great for college basketball to have rivalries, to have programs that are both legitimately top five, top 10 caliber,” Hurley said. “The fact that Coach [Pitino] has their program positioned the way they played last year and the way they look in the preseason makes it exciting. It makes it great for the Big East. Those are going to be fun games.”
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