![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/head-coach-rick-pitino-st-118652531_c99e3f.jpg\")
Head coach Rick Pitino of the St. John\u2019s Red Storm watches action against the Creighton Bluejays during the first half at CHI Health Center on January 10, 2026 in Omaha, Nebraska. Getty Images<\/p>\nDon\u2019t call Marquette a trap game.<\/p>\n
To Rick Pitino, it\u2019s as big as any game St. John\u2019s will play the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarquette is much more important than UConn \u2014 not in your eyes, but in our eyes,\u201d he said Monday. \u201cMarquette had Villanova beat the other day, Marquette beat Xavier, Xavier beat Providence. We have to understand how important [this game is].\u201d<\/p>\n
His reasoning is that a bad loss can hurt your NCAA Tournament r\u00e9sum\u00e9 more than a good win can help you. <\/p>\n
The Golden Eagles are under .500 at 6-11, and a loss would certainly negatively impact the Red Storm\u2019s standing for March.<\/p>\n
It would seem easy for the Johnnies to overlook them. St. John\u2019s is coming off consecutive impressive road wins, and after the Golden Eagles are two more big ones, at Villanova and home against Seton Hall. Plus, the Red Storm are a 15.5-point favorite.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really imperative that we approach every game the same, and treat every opponent like they can beat us because, [Pitino] says it all the time, any team in this league can beat anybody,\u201d Zuby Ejiofor said. \u201cWe have to have the right mental approach to each and every game.\u201d They\u2019re a team that plays hard on both sides of the ball. We have to be ready to come play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head coach Rick Pitino of the St. John\u2019s Red Storm watches action against the Creighton Bluejays during the first half at CHI Health Center on January 10, 2026 in Omaha, Nebraska. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Joson Sanon didn\u2019t play in the second half against Creighton, logging a season-low six minutes. The sophomore may have been overtaken on the depth chart by Lefteris Liotopoulos, at least for the time being.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you\u2019re talking about physical talent, he\u2019s the most talented guy on the roster. If you\u2019re talking about how to play, he\u2019s not,\u201d Pitino said of Sanon, a transfer from Arizona State. \u201cBut that was true of Zuby when he first came.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s a matter of Joson, does he want to learn the things he doesn\u2019t do well? That\u2019s what it\u2019s gonna come down to, whether or not he reaches greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYour weekly dispatch from the No. 1 source on the Johnnies\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside St. John’s by Zach Braziller, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
One player to keep an eye on is Marquette freshman guard Nigel James Jr. The former Long Island Lutheran star is coming off a 31-point effort in a loss to Villanova and is averaging 13.5 points, four assists and 1.6 steals per game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t call Marquette a trap game. To Rick Pitino, it\u2019s as big as any game St. John\u2019s will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,14182,231,772,1544,1284,66,218],"class_list":{"0":"post-533180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-marquette-golden-eagles","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab","14":"tag-rick-pitino","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-st-johns-red-storm"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115885879374660379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}