WASHINGTON — Zuby Ejiofor has made no secret about how important it is for St. John’s to defend its Big East regular season and tournament championships. On Wednesday against Georgetown, he turned in a performance that demonstrated exactly how committed he is to doing it.
Ejiofor said on Monday as the team prepared for the New Year’s Eve contest with the Hoyas that “there’s got to be a switch” going into conference play after a disappointing non-conference slate where St. John’s failed to gain a signature victory and fell from preseason No. 5 to out of the national rankings.
He put actions behind those words with 25 points, 10 rebounds and a career-high seven assists as the Red Storm overcame a long stretch of unimpressive defense early, grabbed a lead before halftime and rolled to an 95-83 Big East victory before a sparse crowd somehow announced as 4,493 at Capital One Arena.
“I always just pride myself on just being a leader for the rest of the guys,” Ejiofor said. “They’re coming in from different programs so they trust me . . . and I want to thank them for not just believing in me but trusting that I could go out and perform at the level I did tonight.”
Storm coach Rick Pitino said it helps when “your best player is working hardest every day.”
“All his comments have validity because he works so hard,” he added.
St. John’s (9-4, 2-0) ended a run of 10 straight New Year’s Eve defeats since 2008 and embarks on 2026 having won five of its last six games.
With Ejiofor leading the offense and Bryce Hopkins sparking the defense to life, St. John’s scored 21 of the last 30 points over the final 6:41 before halftime to gain control at 52-47 before pulling away in the second half.
Ejiofor scored or assisted on 10 of the first 12 points in the 21-9 run and, with Hopkins dictating much of the chaos, the press forced four of Georgetown’s eight first-half turnovers. The Hoyas came into the game committing an average of 8.8 turnovers.
Hopkins finished with eight points, 10 rebounds and six assists and his effort on defense was especially noticeable. The Red Storm outscored Georgetown by 21 points during his 29 minutes on the floor.
Eyes were going to be on Hopkins because Pitino has been exhorting him to adopt an “Alpha Dog” personality and become assertive. Perhaps even more so because when he opted to transfer from Providence for this season, he chose St. John’s over Georgetown and coach Ed Cooley, who headed the Friars when Hopkins had an all-conference sophomore season.
“He wants us to play with that type of tenacity and energy on defense every time,” Hopkins said. “I have a defensive mindset and that leads to our offense. After we did have that [Alpha Dog] conversation that’s more what I’ve been thinking about doing in practice and I feel like me doing that in practice has led to . . . my switch on the defensive end.”
“Bryce did a lot of things that don’t go in the stat sheet tonight,” Pitino said. “Obviously the rebounds did, but he got very aggressive and came out with great fire [and) we had that great run in the first half that got us to the lead.”
Oziyah Sellers had 16 points including four three-pointers and Ian Jackson had 14 points including four three-pointers. Joson Sanon added 13 points and Dylan Darling 11 points and each made three three-pointers. St. John’s 15 three-pointers (on 27 attempts) was a program high for a Big East game.
KJ Lewis had 27 points and Malik Mack added 18 points for the Hoyas (9-5, 1-2).
Ejiofor was 7-for-9 shooting from the floor and 10-for-13 on the free-throw line, but Pitino said having the ball in his hands is crucial going forward.
“I had a long heart to heart talk with the whole team where I said, ‘Zuby is not playing as well as he did last year and I’m going to tell you why: because last year’s team got him the ball. Zuby is better than he was last year and you’re not getting him the ball,’” Pitino said. “We started getting him the ball in practice and it just freed up so many of our shooters . . . They learned the most valuable lesson is when you feed Zuby great things happen.”
Ejiofor was asked if this performance against the Hoyas is an indicator that the switch he asked for has happened for the Storm.
“To be honest, time will tell,” Ejiofor replied. “We made a step up for sure. It’s not easy coming in, especially on the road, and getting a good victory. So we did a lot of things right. We did a lot of things that we could definitely get better at.”
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.
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