St. John's responds to bad loss with second straight impressive victory, routing Creighton
The St. John's Red Storm bench likes what they see against the Creighton Bluejays during the first half on Jan. 10, 2026 in Omaha, Nebraska. Credit: Getty Images/Steven Branscombe
OMAHA, Neb. — When St. John’s lost to Providence at the Garden last weekend, the situation seemed beyond discouraging. The Red Storm already had fallen from the lofty perch of preseason No. 5 in the country to unranked, and the Quad 3 loss to the Friars loomed as a stain on their NCAA Tournament resume.
It was a bad enough defeat that coach Rick Pitino said, “Now our backs are to the wall very early in the season.”
The loss also might prove to be exactly what this St. John’s team needed. The Red Storm have responded to the coach’s call for urgency with back-to-back Quad 1 road wins.
After winning at Butler on Tuesday, they played on Saturday at Creighton, where they had won only once in their previous 14 tries — and they completely overwhelmed the Bluejays in a 90-73 Big East victory at CHI Health Center that had the 17,185 in attendance heading for the exits with eight minutes left.
“Finally walking out happy,” Zuby Ejiofor said as he made his way to the team bus. “Feels so much better than it did after losing those [one-point] games the last two years.”
Asked if he expected his Red Storm to turn things around this way, Pitino replied, “100% . . . These guys are great. They give me everything they have. I never wavered one bit. I told them they're going to win. They're going to get on a winning streak. I said, ‘if you can win on the road, that tells you who you are.’ ”
St. John’s (11-5, 4-1) appears to be morphing into the formidable and dangerous team it had been expected to be. Ejiofor is the constant — the guy whom the Red Storm can always count on to deliver — but it’s starting to look as if any of a number of his teammates can be the one who beats an opponent.
Against Butler, it was Ruben Prey and Bryce Hopkins. Against Creighton (10-7, 4-2), it was guards Lefteris Liotopoulos, Oziyah Sellers and Dylan Darling.
Ejiofor was his reliable self with 12 points, six assists and four steals. Liotopoulos came off the bench to score a career-high 17 points, hitting five three-pointers. Sellers had 16 points, six rebounds and five assists. Darling had 11 points and was a dogged defender on the perimeter, helping the Red Storm outscore Creighton by 21 points in his 19 minutes on the court.
Hopkins and Ian Jackson each added 12 points and Dillon Mitchell had eight points and nine rebounds for St. John’s, which shot 51% for the game and went 12-for-23 on three-point attempts. Isaac Traudt scored 14 for the Bluejays.
Liotopoulos — who goes by "Lefty'’ even though he is righthanded — has been coming on as a potential difference-maker. The sophomore from Greece had 10 points against Butler; in his past three games, he is averaging 11.3 points and shooting 52%, including 9-for-17 from outside the arc.
Creighton shot 6-for-10 from three-point range in grabbing a 23-18 lead with 10:53 left in the first half before St. John’s erupted for a 25-4 run in a span of 6:31 to take a 16-point lead it would not relinquish. Liotopoulos had nine points on a trio of threes and Sellers and Darling each had five points in that span. Creighton shot 1-for-6 from outside the arc the rest of the half.
All of Liotopoulos’ three-pointers in the run came off Ejiofor's passes from the low post.
“He’s a marksman,” Ejiofor said. “Any time he’s in the game and I get the ball, I am looking for him.”
“It's great — [Pitino] trusts me more and more and I'm putting the work during the practices,” Liotopoulos said. “I’ve got to be better, get better defensively, but offensively, my teammates trust me and I'm taking a lot of shots.”
“Every time he shoots it, I feel like it’s going in,” said Pitino, who now has road wins over every Big East foe in his three seasons with the Red Storm. “He gets it off quicker than anybody.”
The loss to Providence stung, but St. John’s appears to have found something in the hurt. And to say the Red Storm have '‘rebounded’' is appropriate. The team whose biggest weakness appeared to be defensive rebounding has allowed only eight offensive rebounds in two games.
“After the loss, we gathered together and said, ‘We’re not going to lose anymore,’ ” Liotopoulos said. “We were great in practice, aggressive with a lot of energy, and that translated on the court.”
“It just brought a sense of urgency to us,” Darling said. “We knew the problems we had and needed to address them quickly . . . Our back was against the wall. Like [Pitino] says, ‘You either wilt or you dig in and get tougher.’ ”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
