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2025 Big East Tournament Semifinals: 3 Takeaways

ByChandler Boucher

Mar 15, 2025
Big East Tournament logo on center court (Photo credit: Ryan Poutre, CBB Review)Big East Tournament logo on center court (Photo credit: Ryan Poutre, CBB Review)

Day three of the Big East Tournament saw the best in the conference faceoff in another great day of college hoops.

While the games may not have started as early in the day as the quarterfinals did, the semifinals similarly finished late into the night. Fortunately, NYC is the city that never sleeps and the Big East fans in attendance brought the energy for all 80 minutes of basketball.

The day began with St. John’s getting their first ever Big East Tournament win over Marquette in a 79-63 rout. The second game between UConn and Creighton was a battle, especially in the second half, that saw Creighton come out on top 71-62 to make their third Big East Tournament final in the last five seasons.

The Big East Tournament final matchup will be between St. John’s and Creighton. St. John’s is in their first final since 2000 and Creighton since 2022. These two teams split their meetings in the regular season with Creighton winning 57-56 in Omaha and St. John’s winning 79-73 in the second leg at Madison Square Garden.

Takeaway #1: Don’t mess with Zuby Ejiofor

The Junior had a monster game finishing with 33 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 assists. Zuby had a great season and was named to the Big East All-Conference First Team and this performance just further adds to the legacy that he is building with St. John’s.

Head coach Rick Pitino praised Zuby Ejiofor after the game and went on to talk about how he hopes to see his shooting improve enough over the summer that he can stretch the floor and play as a power forward. If that’s the case then Ejiofor will be in the All-American conversation because the rest of his play is everything you want in a star big.

Whether it’s scoring, rebounding, or being a versatile defender, Zuby puts his maximum effort into whatever the team needs from him. Pitino’s comments were looking more towards the future, but in the present Zuby is going to be such an important piece to St. John’s bringing home even more hardware this season.

Takeaway #2: Creighton holds off UConn

Creighton had a very strong first half as they took an eleven point halftime lead over the reigning back-to-back champs. Stars Steven Ashworth and Ryan Kalkbrenner only had 9 combined points in the first half while role players Jasen Green and Jamiya Neal had a combined 28 points.

The Huskies came out ferocious in the second half with some lockdown defense and a 12-0 run that cut Creighton’s lead to just 3 points. UConn was never able to get over the hump and Creighton was able to weather the storm as they earn their program’s fifth appearance in the Big East Tournament finals.

Emotions were running high in this game and it ended with some extracurriculars as Creighton’s Jamiya Neal opted out of dribbling the clock out for a flashy dunk. Hassan Diarra took exception to it and it resulted in both players receiving technical fouls with less than 2 seconds remaining in the game.

After some general criticism of his team playing soft, head coach Greg McDermott emphasized in his post-game presser that he has “some tough guys in that locker room”. Despite getting attacked often, center Ryan Kalkbrenner stayed strong and played 39 minutes against UConn after playing 47 minutes the night before against DePaul. If playing 86 minutes of basketball in back to back days isn’t tough, then I don’t know what is.

Takeaway #3: The Big East Tournament rocks

This is a freebie takeaway, but nonetheless it’s true. From packed crowds of passionate fans to high octane games all day long, this conference tournament truly has it all. The cherry on top… this event is hosted by Madison Square Garden every single year.

With just one game left of the tournament, I can properly reflect back on how great of an event this was. From Conwell’s 38 points to DePaul taking Creighton to 2OT, every game has had some story to it making them all enjoyable to follow.

With all of those things in mind, this is a true bucket list event for any college hoops fan to attend. Four of the last eight national champions have come out of the Big East, watch the Big East Tournament and you’ll know exactly why.

By Chandler Boucher