The standard for St. John’s has long been the 1984-85 season. Now we may be on the cusp of a season that becomes the new standard.
The 1984-85 St. John’s team was the best in modern program history. Hall of Fame coach Lou Carnesecca had a team with six players who went on to the NBA — headlined by national Player of the Year and future Naismith Hall of Famer Chris Mullin — and about as tough a point guard as anyone could imagine in Mike Moses from Tolentine High in the Bronx. The team spent more than a month ranked No. 1 in the nation. Tickets to see St. John’s at the Garden were the hottest in town.
St. John’s played in the Final Four, college basketball’s Nirvana.
There is plenty of reason to believe this team is capable of equaling or eclipsing that. Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino might be the best ever in college basketball, a meticulous strategist and innovator who has guided three programs to seven Final Fours and won two national championships.
There are NBA-level players in Zuby Ejiofor, Joson Sanon, Ian Jackson, Bryce Hopkins and, perhaps, Oziyah Sellers and Ruben Prey. Maybe there is no national Player of the Year candidate, but Ejiofor will be in the All-American mix. Time will tell whether someone can be the exceptional second option that Walter Berry was, but there are a lot of candidates with the skills and talent to be that.
On the eve of the college basketball season, it is precarious to call a program a Final Four contender. So many things need to go right: great performance against a tough non-conference schedule, near-domination of a power conference, a great seeding for the NCAA Tournament, a player or two who overachieves to become essential, an unmatched cohesiveness and a path in the single-elimination tournament that can be navigated.
All of this is possible for the Red Storm. No dedicated St. John’s fan old enough to remember the last Final Four team will forget it, but today’s team has the potential to supplant it.
The 2024-25 season was exceptional for the Red Storm. They tied a program record with 31 wins, captured the Big East Tournament title for the first time in 25 years and won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time since 2000.
“If you’re hoisting trophies at the end of the season? That’s what we play for,” Ejiofor said at Big East media day. “We play for championships . . . That’s why all the guys who transferred here came. A lot of them haven’t tasted it, but we did in the Big East last [season]. I talk to them. I know that’s what they want.”
There was a lot of national championship talk among the St. John’s players when summer workouts began. The school’s media team even put out some videos on social media in which some spoke of their aspirations. Pitino shut that down fast.
No one gets a big head at St. John’s. Pitino was asked at Big East media day about all of the accolades showered on the Red Storm — as the preseason favorites, with Ejiofor as Preseason Player of the Year, Hopkins as an all-conference first-teamer and Jackson, Sanon and Sellers as other all-conference picks. Does he think the players need to be tamped down?
He replied, “One thing they can [all] attest to: When practice ends, none of them think they’re No. 1.”
The college basketball season is capricious. Teams win games they probably shouldn’t. More often, they lose games they probably should. Deivon Smith’s shoulder injury dogged the Red Storm for weeks last season. Kadary Richmond and Aaron Scott needed surgeries immediately after the season ended.
Nothing is a certainty, except this: This St. John’s season will be riveting.
The Red Storm will play high-profile games at the Garden against No. 15 Alabama and Ole Miss, three challenging contests against teams in the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas — including No. 16 Iowa State — and No. 9 Kentucky in Atlanta on Dec. 20. And that’s before two games against No. 4 Connecticut and two more against No. 23 Creighton in Big East play.
St. John’s doesn’t have to win them all — thought it certainly has the tools to — but the idea of playing in the Final Four should be a real goal. They have the talent. They have the coach. They have the Garden.
There’s no reason that Red Storm fans should have to keep ruminating about 1985. Maybe 2026 will be the one everyone talks about from now on.
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.
