Dan Hurley Praises St. John's Forward After Decimating UConn
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The No. 2 seed Huskies fell to top-seeded St. John’s 72–52 in the Big East championship game at Madison Square Garden on March 14. The Huskies finished with a season-high 17 turnovers and shot just 3-for-19 from three, while St. John’s converted mistakes into 24 points off turnovers.
The Red Storm opened with a 10–0 run, led by double digits for most of the night, and carried a 40–27 lead into halftime. Despite the Huskies losing the conference tournament crown, Dan Hurley's postgame went on to sing praises about St. John’s forward Zuby Ejiofor.
“I mean, that guy (Zuby Ejiofor), he's one of the best players in college I've ever coached against. The production, the point production, the rebounding production, the havoc he causes on defense, the relentlessness that he plays with. And then just him as a leader of that team. His personality, the rage that he plays with, the fire that he plays with. That guy is just a total butt-kicker. He's on the short list of the best players I've ever coached against in college. That guy is a true difference-maker who elevates everyone around him,” said Hurley.
Hurley is not wrong. Ejiofor had a brilliant stat line during the tournament finals. The St. John’s big man finished with 18 points, nine rebounds, seven blocks and three steals. In the early season win against the Huskies, he had a similar performance with 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists.
ZZZUUUUUBBBBYYYYYY pic.twitter.com/8azUcfM3nQ
— St. John's Men’s Basketball (@StJohnsBBall) March 15, 2026
However, in the late-February matchup in Hartford, the Huskies had managed to slow him down. Tarris Reed Jr. was one of the reasons why. Reed finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds, six blocks, two steals and three assists while shooting 9-of-14, anchoring UConn’s interior defense and limiting Ejiofor to just six points.
Unfortunately, the championship game unraveled quite differently. Ejiofor held his own defensively when matched up one-on-one with Reed. With Ejiofor doing the same, the Red Storm was able to commit extra pressure on the perimeter.
St. John’s defenders crowded UConn shooters and aggressively chased them off the 3-point line, confident the paint was protected. Unfortunately, the Huskies did not have enough perimeter players. Ejiofor’s ability to neutralize Reed and anchor the paint was a major reason the Red Storm were able to shut down UConn’s offense.
In fact, Hurley even went on to question why the forward isn’t appearing in early NBA Draft projections.
“I have no idea why that guy is not mocked as a first-round player in the NBA Draft. He's a switchable defender, he can make threes, he can guard one through five. A guy like that is almost like Al Horford, the way Al Horford plays in the NBA, not when he was at Florida,” said Hurley.
UConn Heads to the NCAA Tournament in Search of Redemption
The loss to St. John’s is the second loss the Huskies have had in the span of a week. First came the regular-season finale loss to Marquette, which cost the Huskies a share of the Big East title, then came the loss to St. John’s.
Still, the loss doesn’t necessarily define what comes next. UConn has been in a similar position before. During the 2022–23 season, the Huskies exited the Big East tournament without a title but surged during March, ultimately winning the national championship. The Huskies could do that again.
In fact, Hurley, talking about his plans ahead, said, “We'll do the same thing we did in ’23. We'll stay in the hotel tonight. The coaches will break down the film. We'll watch the edit in the morning with the team, and we'll leave the Big East Tournament experience here on Sunday morning. We know that we play our best basketball in the NCAA Tournament versus non-conference teams. So our group knows that. This is a really, really physical league. That was a really, really, really physical game. We're excited to play in the NCAA Tournament that doesn't get played like that.”
-fd44250df32912986cc6690f0b8bfa32.png "Shivani Menon")
Shivani Menon is a sports journalist with a background in Mass Communication and a passion for storytelling. She has written for EssentiallySports, College Sports Network, and PFSN, covering Olympic sports like track and field, gymnastics, and alpine skiing, as well as college football, basketball, March Madness, and the NBL Draft. When she's not reporting, she's either on the road chasing sunsets or getting lost in the rhythms of electronic soundscapes.