Zuby Erupts Gets Red Storm To Big East Finals
Photo: Special to the NY Beacon
By Samori Benjamin
The St. John’s Red Storm are advancing to the finals of the Big East Tournament for the first time since 2000. Big man Zuby Ejofor led the way for St. John’s in their semifinal matchup against Marquette with 33 points and 9 rebounds as St. John’s rolled 78-63. “It was just an amazing feeling, I got it going early and on,” Ejofor said in front of a packed conference room of reporters after the game. “I just want to think my coaching staff and my teammates for putting me in a position to be successful. They told me to come out and be a lot more aggressive than I did last game and that’s exactly what I did do. I just want to give all the props to them. So, Coach Pitino just does a great job of just challenging us to be better every single game and now it’s on to the championship game and we are looking forward to it.” St John’s head coach Rick Pitino has taken three different schools to the Final Four and he coached the Knicks from 1987 through 1989. In year two he has St. John’s one win away from their first Big East Tournament title in 25 years.
“When Zuby came in, I put him through a hard player development session. The first thing I noticed is he never complained about the drills,” coach Pitino said after the game. “He went through it, and then he shot the ball really well and I said to his dad, I said, ‘I got myself hell of a player here,’ He said, ‘well I tell everybody Zuby can shoot.’ And I said, ‘well Zuby can do a lot of things.’ But every coach wants to have a player like him. Selfless, just cares about the team. You get blessed. I’ve been coaching for 50 years, there are very few Zuby’s that come along that just think about the team. Whether he scores 33 or 3 it’s all about the team. Every timeout he’s saying something positive to the guys and we’re lucky, we got him back again this season, and we’re lucky he’s our captain.”
Big East Player of the Year RJ Luis Jr. only made 4 of 18 shots for 13 points to go along with 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals. St John’s will play Creighton University on Saturday night for the Big East tournament Championship for the first time since 2000 after winning the regular season Big East title outright for the first time since 1985. The only other years St. John’s has won the Big East Tournament has been 1983, 1986, and 2000. The team’s split their regular season games earlier this season.
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