Do the UConn men have a basketball rivalry with St. John's?

[HooperScooper]

Not sure why Borges wrote this article now but here you go. Until St. John's actually does something I'll go with no, there is no rivalry. They're another Big East team that UConn plays 2 times a year. But you need more than that for a rivalry. St. John's hasn't been consistently good for a long time. Not sure Pitino is going to be around long enough to sustain anything.

"I do think every time you play them it’s a big game, the Garden is sold out," Pitino conceded. "So, without question we have great respect for them. They’re tops in the country, never mind the Big East. We certainly don’t look at them as a rival yet, until we beat them.”

https://www.nhregister.com/sports/uconn-mens-basketball/article/uconn-mens-basketball-rick-pitino-st-johns-19588792.php

Alternate access:

Do the UConn men have a basketball rivalry with St. John's? What Rick Pitino said about Huskies

 

[Inyatkin]

He wrote it because it's the offseason and UConn stories get the page views and topics are hard to come by

 

[StllH8L8ner]

No…we’re more popular in their own arena. Next.

 

[upstater]

Traditionally, in the past, yes.
It would be great to see this rivalry fire up again.
An argument can be made that St. John's used to be a bigger rival than Syracuse. Certainly bigger than Providence. In fact, before St. John's fell on hard times this century, it was probably UConn's biggest rival.

 

[Luna]

This is going to be a great rivalry!!! It is already

 

[AllHusky]

The hiring of Pitino makes the rivalry with St Johns compelling. You can't ignore him or St Johns. Even though he is 0-3, we did faceoff for the BE Championship, and they played us tough in December. His Iona team gave us a tough time in the 1st round of the NC's in 2023. His history as a winning coach at numerous schools got him elected to the Naismith HoF in 2013.

A notable slimeball, the NCAA had to vacate one of his NC's. Did you know he got into big NCAA trouble just out of UMass as an Asst at Hawaii in 1974? Pitino is the perfect black hatted villain to play off against the white hatted good guys from Storrs. Yes, there is a rivalry, and it's good for the BE.

 

[Scot-e]

I think its worth putting them on the list as long as Rick is coaching. He will make them better- like him or not he is good. Rather beef with NYC then Gtown or southern Canada even though I will always hold distain in my heart for them.

 

[freescooter]

Not sure why Borges wrote this article now but here you go. Until St. John's actually does something I'll go with no, there is no rivalry. They're another Big East team that UConn plays 2 times a year. But you need more than that for a rivalry. St. John's hasn't been consistently good for a long time. Not sure Pitino is going to be around long enough to sustain anything.

"I do think every time you play them it’s a big game, the Garden is sold out," Pitino conceded. "So, without question we have great respect for them. They’re tops in the country, never mind the Big East. We certainly don’t look at them as a rival yet, until we beat them.”

https://www.nhregister.com/sports/uconn-mens-basketball/article/uconn-mens-basketball-rick-pitino-st-johns-19588792.php

Alternate access:

Do the UConn men have a basketball rivalry with St. John's? What Rick Pitino said about Huskies

Utter nonsense. Nobody cares about St John’s. UConn fans go to the games because MSG is easily accessible, a huge % of the fan base lives in Fairfield County. For them it is probably easier to get to Madison Square Garden than to Gampel Pavillion. To the extent that we have a rivalry with anyone, and our rivals are mostly in the ACC now, I guess Marquette and Creighton but they aren’t really. It was us and Syracuse, us and Pitt and us and BC. BC in sort of a big brother-little brother way. St John’s was more of a national team we needed to get past back in the day. They have not been nationally relevant for a quarter century now. We have long since left them in the dust. With the exceptions of Marquette, Villanova, Creighton and us, the rest are a bunch of high mid-majors. Well, except DePaul. They are D3ish. And Georgetown, a low mid-major.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

Comically, no.

 

[freescooter]

I think its worth putting them on the list as long as Rick is coaching. He will make them better- like him or not he is good. Rather beef with NYC then Gtown or southern Canada even though I will always hold distain in my heart for them.

Then the answer is no. Rivalries don’t come and go because the coach changes. You think Michigan and Ohio Stste won’t be rivals because Michigan has a new coach? UNC and Duke aren’t rivals because K and Roy retired? Red Sox and Yankees won’t care if the managers change? You clearly don’t get rivalries.

 

[NowInStorrs]

Not really but they're about as close as we have these days, along with Villanova and maybe Providence. I don't really consider those schools as real rivals either though.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Kudos to Pitino for being the anti-Providence and asserting that they actually have to win something and compete with us before they can consider us to be rivals.

 

[Methalius]

We used to have a big time rvialry with all of the "Core" Big East Schools. Back especially in the mid 80's when St. John's had Mullins, Wennington and then eventually Mark Jackson it was always a rivalry game but it was never to the level of Syracuse or even the Allen Iverson Georgetown days....

Pitino is the real deal though when it comes to coaching. I love what they did with the Transfer Portal. I can absolutely see them giving UConn all we can handle in 24-25....

 

[AllHusky]

UConn 34-37 all time vs St J's
6-1 in NBE
dominated last half of OBE 11-6 2000-10

Some hard times for both programs since 2000, while lately we've been pretty good

 

[auror]

Not a rivalry until Pitino beats Hurley. 0-4.

 

[FlippinCrazy!]

Is the civil conflict a rivalry game? Does a bear **** in the woods?

 

[FearThePups]

Here’s my take on UConn rivalry status during the Big East in 1979 showing the founding 7 schools and Nova added in 1980.

1 St. Johns
2 Syracuse
3 Villanova
4 Georgetown
5 Providence
6 Seton Hall
7 Boston College

Teams joining post 1980
Pittsburgh
Miami
Rutgers
West Virginia
Virginia Tech
Notre Dame
DePaul
Marquette
Butler
Xavier
Creighton

Have I missed any? I don’t think any schools joining post 1980 I would consider a rival. Opinions?

 

[AllHusky]

Thought we had a pretty intense albeit short rivalry with Pitt, bruising games. I think Notre Dame becomes an immediate rival if they are on your schedule, you just have to beat them in any sport.

Never thought of Seton Hall as much of a rival, even though PJ did a great job there. The rest of the originals were definite rivalries.

 

[Palatine]

No. But we do have a rivalry with Pitino.

 

[FearThePups]

Thought we had a pretty intense albeit short rivalry with Pitt, bruising games. I think Notre Dame becomes an immediate rival if they are on your schedule, you just have to beat them in any sport.

Never thought of Seton Hall as much of a rival, even though PJ did a great job there. The rest of the originals were definite rivalries.

Will agree about the fierce, physical games with Pitt. And maybe I switch St. John’s with Cuse for 1 and 2.

 

[AllHusky]

No. But we do have a rivalry with Pitino.

Think you nailed it.

 

[RuffRuff]

St John's has barely made the tournament in the last 20 years, hard to call that a rival. There is a narrative there with Pitino, but impossible to call this a rivalry. The heart of whatever you want to call the PC dynamic is proximity, their ravenous & annoying fan base and home atmosphere, not matching success. St John's has a watered down version of all of those.

 

[boog204]

In the 90s they were a legit rival. Those Jarvis teams were super tough. One of my fave UConn games ever is us blowing them out in the BET championship in 99.

 

[ItsNotSo]

No rivalry, although St. John’s may think it is. It’s similar to the Whalers and Bruins. Whalers fans thought of Boston as a rival but the Bruins didn’t - mostly because they had other long standing rivals and for the most part, sadly, the Whalers weren’t good.

 

[Kembacity]

You’d be foolish to think with the league where it is right now that what we have with St Johns isn’t the makings of a rivalry.

It’s the rivalry where we’re the big boy and they have a coach they’re excited about throwing around a lot of money and fielding good teams. We own their arena, that upsets them, we beat them, that upsets them, so as soon as they beat us they’ll celebrate like they won the championship and we’ll hate them like they hate us.

Nova sucks, Cuse is gone, we’ve got a good regional thing with Providence and I feel like we have a little something with Creighton because they’ve had our number still overall since we’ve been back in the BE. Rivalries are fun, what’s wrong with you guys?