Team Huddle by: Stacy Podelski/1495 Sports
With the release of the complete BIG EAST men’s basketball schedule this afternoon by the conference office, the entirety of the 2018-19 St. John’s men’s basketball slate has now been revealed.
Four of the team’s nine home games in conference will be contested at “The World’s Most Famous Arena,” Madison Square Garden, the home of St. John’s Basketball since 1931. The remaining five BIG EAST home games will take place at Carnesecca Arena, the on-campus home of the Johnnies.
Three of the Red Storm’s BIG EAST matchups will be broadcast on network television. CBS will carry the Johnnies’ game at Georgetown on Jan. 5 before FOX broadcasts consecutive contests at Butler (Jan. 19) and at home against the Hoyas (Jan. 27). Ten of the Red Storm’s 18 conference tilts will be televised nationally on FS1, while CBS Sports Network will carry three games and FSN is set to feature one. The Red Storm’s regular season finale at Xavier has not yet been assigned a time or TV station.
Following 12 non-conference games, 10 of which will be contested in The Five Boroughs, in the months of November and December, St. John’s will kick off BIG EAST action on Saturday, Dec. 29, traveling to Newark for a showdown with local rival Seton Hall. The Johnnies, who will be looking for their first win at the Prudential Center since 2013-14, dropped a closely contested decision to the Pirates in last year’s conference opener in Newark despite suiting up just seven scholarship players.
The Red Storm will ring in 2019 on New Year’s Day in Queens, welcoming the Golden Eagles of Marquette to campus for a Tuesday showdown. Junior Shamorie Ponds may find it hard to match his performance from last year’s meeting with Marquette at Carnesecca Arena. Fresh off back-to-back Red Storm victories against No. 4 Duke and No. 1 Villanova, Ponds went off for 44 points, topping the late great Malik Sealy’s Carnesecca Area/Alumni Record of 43 set in 1990 against Central Connecticut State.
After taking on the Golden Eagles, the Red Storm will hit the road for a pair of contests against longtime BIG EAST foes. On Saturday, Jan. 5, the latest edition of the legendary Chris Mullin–Patrick Ewing rivalry will take place at Capital One Arena when the Johnnies visit Georgetown. The Hoyas took both regular season meetings between the two squads last year, including a double overtime victory in the nation’s capital. The Johnnies, however, enacted their revenge in the postseason, topping the Hoyas in the opening round of the BIG EAST Tournament at Madison Square Garden.
The defending national champions will await the Johnnies after their meeting with Georgetown, as St. John’s will face off against Villanova at the newly renovated Finneran Pavilion on Tuesday, Jan. 8. This meeting will mark the first time that St. John’s has played on campus at Villanova since Jan. 2, 2013, when D’Angelo Harrison dropped a career-high 36 points in an overtime loss to the Wildcats.
The Red Storm will then return to Queens for a pair of contests at Carnesecca Arena, welcoming DePaul on Saturday, Jan. 12, followed by Creighton on Wednesday, Jan. 16. St. John’s will look to improve to 3-3 at home against the Bluejays as BIG EAST foes and will seek to knock off DePaul for the sixth time in the last eight meetings between the two teams.
After their mini homestand, the Red Storm will hit the road for one of the toughest trips in the BIG EAST, heading to Indianapolis for a Jan. 19 date with Butler at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse.
St. John’s will make its BIG EAST Madison Square Garden debut on Sunday, Jan. 27, playing host to Georgetown for the second meeting between the two teams in the span of just over three weeks.
Following their contest with the Hoyas in Midtown, the Johnnies will hit the road for a grueling stretch of games that is more reminiscent of an NBA road trip than anything typically seen at the college level. On Wednesday, Jan. 30, the Red Storm will travel to Omaha for a showdown with Creighton in the newly branded CHI Health Center Omaha. Next up for the Johnnies will be the crown jewel of their non-conference schedule, a contest with Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. St. John’s is currently the last non-ACC foe to knock off the Blue Devils at home, as Bootsy Thornton scored 22 points to lead the Johnnies past Duke, 83-82, on Feb. 26, 2000. After their date with Duke in Durham, the Johnnies will head back to the Midwest, playing their first game inside the brand new Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee against Marquette on Tuesday, Feb. 5.
After its week on the road, the Red Storm will kick off a three-game homestand on Saturday, Feb. 9, taking on Providence for the first time in 2019 at Madison Square Garden. The Friars are coming off their fifth-straight NCAA Tournament appearance last season, a campaign that saw Ed Cooley’s squad reach the championship game of the BIG EAST Tournament before falling to eventual national champion Villanova.
The Johnnies will host their first game on campus in nearly a month on Tuesday, Feb. 12, welcoming Butler to Carnesecca Arena. The Red Storm will then wrap its three-game home stint with a contest against Villanova at “The World’s Most Famous Arena” on Sunday, Feb. 17.
St. John’s will travel to Providence for its second meeting with the Friars in the span of 11 days on Wednesday, Feb. 20, before heading back to The Big Apple for a Madison Square Garden showdown with Seton Hall on Saturday, Feb. 23.
The Red Storm will play its final home game of the 2018-19 regular season on Thursday, Feb. 28, welcoming Xavier to Carnesecca Arena for the first of two meetings between the teams in the span of a week and a half. St. John’s will then travel to The Windy City for a matchup with DePaul on Sunday, March 3, before closing out the regular season in Cincinnati on March 9.
The BIG EAST Tournament will be held at Madison Square Garden for the 37th straight season in 2019, running from Wednesday, March 13, to Saturday, March 16. St. John’s season ticket holders will receive priority access to BIG EAST Tournament tickets.
The non-conference portion of St. John’s schedule will give fans plenty of opportunity to see the Red Storm, as just one game will be contested outside of the New York Metropolitan Area before the start of BIG EAST action. Following Legends Classic campus site games against Loyola Maryland and Bowling Green on Nov. 6 and Nov. 9, respectively, the Red Storm will participate in the Gavitt Tipoff Games for the fourth-straight season, heading to Piscataway, N.J., for a Nov. 16 showdown with former BIG EAST foe Rutgers. St. John’s first two home games will be carried FSN and FS2, respectively, while the team’s tilt at Rutgers will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network.
The Johnnies will then head to the home of Ponds and Chris Mullin, playing two games in Brooklyn at Barclays Center in The Legends Classic. The Red Storm will square off with California in the tournament opener on Nov. 19 before facing either Temple or VCU the following day. Both of those games will be carried on the ESPN family of networks.
St. John’s will then make its first appearance of the season on FS1, hosting Maryland Eastern Shore on Nov. 27 before heading to the Miami Hoophall Invitational on Dec. 1. The Red Storm will face off against Georgia Tech in the event organized by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, marking the third time in the past four seasons that St. John’s will play in an event organized by the Hall.
The Red Storm will then play five-consecutive home games, welcoming Mount St. Mary’s to Carnesecca Arena on Dec. 5 (FS2) before meeting Princeton in the Madison Square Garden Holiday Festival on Dec. 9 (FS1). The Johnnies will then hold three home games in the span of six days at Carnesecca Arena leading into the team’s Christmas break, taking on Wagner (Dec. 16), St. Francis Brooklyn (Dec. 19) and Sacred Heart (Dec. 22). All three of those tilts will be broadcast of FS1.
Season tickets for the 2018-19 campaign are available starting at $465. For more information visit RedStormTix.com or contact the St. John’s Ticket Office via email at RedStormSports@stjohns.edu or by phone at 718-990-6211.
For more information on St. John’s Men’s Basketball team fans are encouraged to click on the link seen here: