Dance Denied! St. John's Snubbed on NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket
The Red Storm has been quelled.
Sunday's reveal of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament bracket omitted St. John's, whose Big Dance was denied as an at-large team. The Red Storm, led by head coach and former New York Knicks boss Rick Pitino, will watch from home for the fifth consecutive season despite posting its best campaign since their last NCAA Tournament run in 2019.
Wendell Cruz, USA TODAY SPORTS
Some believed that the Red Storm (20-13, 11-9 Big East) had a relatively tight case for inclusion earlier last week thanks to a win over likewise-snubbed Seton Hall in the quarterfinal round of the Big East Men's Basketball Tournament at their home of Madison Square Garden on Thursday. That win over the fourth-ranked Pirates afforded the Red Storm its first visit to the conference semifinals since 2000, where it endured a narrow loss to the top seed and eventual champion Connecticut.
But a plethora of unexpected conference champions perhaps popped the Johnnies' bubble: the ACC, for example, was won by a North Carolina State group seeded 10th while Duquesne and UAB respectively turned the Atlantic 10 and American Athletic Conference into multi-bid groups.
The Big East as a whole endured a sorrowful Selection Sunday as only three teams (Connecticut, Creighton, Marquette) were invited. Connecticut, the defending national champions, will go for a repeat as the top seed in the East Region, and they'll begin that trek on Friday in New York City when they face No. 16 Stetson at Barclays Center (2:45 p.m. ET, CBS).
St. John's apparently has no intention of extending its season in the wake of the snub: per Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic, the team has opted to reject any potential inclusion on the National Invitational Tournament's bracket, joining several other high-profile programs (i.e. Indiana, Mississippi, Memphis, Pittsburgh Syracuse) in passing up participation in the consolation competition.
