St. John's tops Big East preseason poll for 1st time since 1991

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NEW YORK (AP) — Rick Pitino doesn't put much stock in his St. John's team being No. 1 in the Big East Conference preseason poll for the first time in three decades.

“I really don’t pay too much attention to prognosticating because especially in this day and age, I don’t even know the names of the players (on the other teams),” the Hall of Fame coach said at Big East media day.

The Red Storm received seven of the first-place votes from the conference's coaches Tuesday. UConn garnered the other four. It's the first time since 1991-92 that St. John's held the top spot in the preseason poll.

The team is led by Zuby Ejiofor, who was selected as the conference's preseason player of the year. The senior forward averaged 14.7 points and 8.1 rebounds while shooting nearly 58% from the field last season.

The Huskies have the preseason freshman of the year in Braylon Mullins.

St. John's and UConn were reversed in the AP Top 25 preseason poll with the Huskies ranked fourth and the Red Storm fifth. It's the highest preseason ranking ever for St. John's in the AP poll.

Creighton and Providence followed UConn with Marquette and Georgetown next. Then came Villanova, Xavier, DePaul, Butler and Seton Hall.

The conference welcomes two new coaches with Kevin Willard taking over at Villanova and Richard Pitino getting the head job at Xavier.

The two Pitinos will face off on Jan. 24 and Feb. 9.

“That will be an added storyline,” Richard Pitino said. “Regardless of my dad, St. John's is really, really good. In year one to be playing a St. John's or a UConn. Top-10, top-20 teams, we better be ready to go. It's going to be a real tough challenge.”

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