![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1-slams-ball-first-half-119320850.jpg\")
Dillon Mitchell slams home a dunk during the first half of St. John\u2019s 65-60 win over rival Seton Hall on Jan. 20, 2026 at Madison Square Garden. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\nIt felt like last season.<\/p>\n
A big deficit. Nothing going right. And out of nowhere, St. John\u2019s woke up, playing like its life was on the line.<\/p>\n
There was no Kadary Richmond or RJ Luis Jr. this time. Instead, it was Dillon Mitchell, Bryce Hopkins and Dylan Darling leading the charge in a wild come-from-behind 65-60 victory at the Garden over rival Seton Hall to extend their winning streak to five.<\/p>\n
On a night when Zuby Ejiofor didn\u2019t have it and the starting backcourt of Oziyah Sellers and Ian Jackson were non-factors, the Red Storm found it late. Trailing by 15 early in the second half, they outscored Seton Hall 33-13 over the final 15:39, and owned the glass in winning time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout question, this was my favorite game of the season,\u201d coach Rick Pitino said. \u201cNow we\u2019ve played better, but it\u2019s my favorite game of the season. Because when you\u2019re down 15 to a team like Seton Hall and you\u2019re getting your [behind] kicked on the offensive glass, and you\u2019re in foul trouble, and you come back from 15 points down and wind up with 20 offensive rebounds, you really wanted to win this game.\u201d<\/p>\n
It marked just the second time all year, St. John\u2019s has won when it trailed after halftime. The first occasion came at the start of this run, in the decisive win at Butler.<\/p>\n
Mitchell gave St. John\u2019s the lead for good with 4:53 left and Darling\u2019s steal and basket with 1:10 remaining pushed the lead to five. Ejiofor hit three key free throws in the final 1:21 as the Red Storm won for the 10th time in 12 games to remain all alone in second place in the Big East.<\/p>\n
Mitchell led St. John\u2019s (14-5, 7-1 Big East) with 17 points and 11 rebounds, Bryce Hopkins added 13 points, eight rebounds and four assists and Darling chipped in eight points and three steals. A.J. Staton-McCray scored 16 for Seton Hall (14-5, 4-4).<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked the guys before the game, what do you admire the most about Zuby? They all said, he just outworks everybody,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cI said, I got to get 13 guys who outwork everybody like Zuby for us to progress to the level we want to get to, and these two guys [Mitchell and Hopkins] did that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dillon Mitchell slams home a dunk during the first half of St. John\u2019s 65-60 win over rival Seton Hall on Jan. 20, 2026 at Madison Square Garden. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
Defense won the game, St. John\u2019s forcing 13 Seton Hall turnovers and holding them to 28 percent shooting in the second half. Over the final 12:10, St. John\u2019s won the battle on the glass, 20-6.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey got momentum in the second half, and then they just imposed their will,\u201d Seton Hall coach Shaheen Holloway said.<\/p>\n
Early in the second half, a win felt unlikely. St. John\u2019s missed its first six shots of the period and went scoreless over the first 4:21. At that point, the Red Storm trailed by 15, and were getting outworked at both ends of the floor.<\/p>\n
![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/st-johns-red-storm-head-119320813.jpg\")
Rick Pitino reacts during the first half of St. John\u2019s win over Seton Hall. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
CHECK OUT THE LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS<\/a> AND ST. JOHN\u2019S STATS<\/a><\/p>\n During a timeout, Pitino told his players to think of it like an NCAA Tournament game. Either respond, or their season could be over.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you going to go home, or are you going to win the game?\u201d he said. \u201cThat was the challenge I gave to them. You\u2019re down 15, are you going to go home, it\u2019s the NCAA Tournament, say goodbye to everybody, never see each other again, or move on?\u201d <\/p>\n From there, St. John\u2019s flipped a switch, turning the clock back to last season to keep the good vibes going.<\/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 \u201cWe just went out there and played our hearts out, left it all out there on the court, and we\u2019re happy with the results,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cIt\u2019s just playing as hard as you can, that\u2019s the main thing. There\u2019s nothing special we did. It was just playing hard, getting stops on defense.\u201d <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It felt like last season. A big deficit. Nothing going right. And out of nowhere, St. John\u2019s woke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,3426,217,231,772,1544,3027,1284,5972,66,218],"class_list":{"0":"post-550464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-big-east","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab","14":"tag-ny-sports-minute","15":"tag-rick-pitino","16":"tag-seton-hall-pirates","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-st-johns-red-storm"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115931634171174874","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550464","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=550464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}