St. John’s squandered the rest of its preseason equity in its maddening 78-66 loss to Kentucky SATURDAY. They gave up a seven-point halftime lead and were completely dominated in the second half by a Wildcats team criticized for its inability to play physical in previous marquee games this season.
With a 7-4 record and their best wins against Baylor and Ole Miss, the Red Storm will almost certainly lose the number next to their name in Monday’s AP Poll. Any idea of reaching a high seed and going into a deep tournament seems like a pipe dream right now, and missing the Big Dance entirely isn’t out of the question.
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But the only way out is through it.
The Walls feel like they’re closing in on St. John’s, and many fans in New York are ready to air their grievances at Festivus, but there are still 20 regular-season games left before the Big East tournament (St. John’s is favored in almost all of them) and many experts still consider the Red Storm one of the top three teams in the Big East. They can’t rebuild that goodwill in Tuesday night’s game against Harvard, but they can bounce back from their miserable trip to Atlanta and bring some energy into their New Year’s Day game against Georgetown.
Game information
WHO: St. John’s Red Storm (7-4) vs. Harvard Crimson (6-6)
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When: Tuesday December 23, 2025, 6:00 p.m.
Or: Carnesecca Arena, Queens, New York
TV: FS1
Radio: ESPN New York 880/1050
History of the series: St. John’s won all four meetings, including its last game on November 30, 2024 by a final score of 77-64.
KenPom Predicted Score: St. John’s will win 84-63 (97 percent chance of victory)
Injury News
There is no injury news to report for St. John’s ahead of Tuesday night’s game.
Things to watch out for during the storm
Fairytale New York – If St. John’s wants to continue their momentum, they must protect their home base and win in town with cars as big as bars and rivers of gold. The Red Storm are 24-1 at Madison Square Garden and Carnesecca Arena dating back to last season.
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It snowed – St. John’s stalwart frontcourt does an incredibly poor job on the defensive glass. So far, they are ranked 315th nationally in offensive rebound percentage allowed (35.6%). The Red Storm were outscored by 11 in their loss to Kentucky and only managed 12 total rebounds compared to 10 for the Wildcats. offensive bounced back in the second half.
Jack’Frost – Ian Jackson was the only St. John’s player to have a good outing against Kentucky, scoring 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting and allowing just one turnover. While Jackson is still not an effective distributor, having only distributed 7 assists in his last 3 games, the Bronx native is gaining confidence with each game, and his playing time should be adjusted accordingly.
In search of crimson
Midway through Tommy Amaker’s 19th season at Cambridge, Harvard is a dynamic Ivy League team looking to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 11 years. The Crimson hovers around average with a KenPom ranking of 189th on Monday. Aside from nearly upsetting Penn State on the road, they’ve had a pretty unadventurous start to their 2025-26 campaign.
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Harvard is led by sophomore and former four-star recruit Robert Hinton, who won the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award a season ago. Standing at 6-foot-5, the towering bodyguard leads the team with 16.8 points per game and ranks second on the Crimson in rebounding with 5.3 rebounds collected per game. Although Hinton isn’t a three-down threat (23.3 percent this season), he can score in batches by attacking the rim. The Los Angeles native already has two 30-point games this season and set a new career-high of 35 points against UMass without making a triple.
Sophomore guard Tey Barbour serves as a foil to Hinton’s slasher, stuffing the basket as the Crimson’s go-to three-point threat. The 6-foot-4 guard is averaging 11.9 points and 5.8 rebounds, shooting 45.9 percent from the field and leading all Ivy League players with a 41.7 percent three-point clip.
Chandler Pigge is the only senior in the rotation and can guard multiple positions at 6-foot-5. The guard from Houston, Texas ranks second on the Crimson in scoring at 13.8 points per game, shooting 44.8 percent from the field and 30.8 percent from three. Pigge led all Crimson players with 15 points (5 of 10 FG), seven rebounds and five assists when Harvard faced St. John’s last season.
In the middle as the small-ball center is 6-foot-7 junior Thomas Batties II, who averages 10.6 points, 3.6 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per game. Batties makes up for his lack of size by stretching the floor as a serious three-point threat, shooting 21 of 38 from deep to start this season (55.3%). That number is certainly not sustainable, even though Batties shot 38.2 percent from three last season, if you want an indication of how he performs with a larger sample size.
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Prediction
The Red Storm may find themselves flat against a middling opponent heading into Christmas, but that shouldn’t matter against a Harvard team that is severely lacking in size in the frontcourt. Ejiofor, Mitchell and Hopkins can put their disappointing performance against Kentucky behind them and enjoy Tuesday night.
St. John’s wins, 86-63.
