First reported by CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein last week, the Red Storm will face the heavyweight Big 12 team in the Bahamas this November
St. John’s opponent in the first round of this November’s Baha Mar Bahamas Hoops Championship is set. According to CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein, the Red Storm will face the Baylor Bears on Thursday, November 21.
The other two teams in the hyper-competitive event, Tennessee and Virginia, will play in the other first-round game. The four-team tournament will be held at the Baha Mar Convention, Arts & Entertainment Center. Tip-off times and television broadcast information for all games will be announced later.
This season, Baylor is seeking to advance to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament for the first time since they won the National Championship in 2021. In the last three seasons, the Bears fell in the Second Round to lower-seeded teams. According to Bart Torvik, Baylor is the projected 14th-best team in the country for the 2024-25 season, one spot ahead of St. John’s.
This will be the second all-time matchup between St. John’s and Baylor. In their first meeting on November 18, 2012, the No. 16 Bears handled the Red Storm by a score of 97-78 in the third-place game of the Charleston Classic.
Both opponents are historically unfamiliar with each other, but this November’s matchup provides a juicy recruiting storyline. This offseason, St. John’s unsuccessfully recruited three star players who would later to commit to Baylor.
Many anticipated that Miami star transfer Norchad Omier would commit to St. John’s when he entered the portal with a no-contact designation this spring, but he instead signed with Baylor. Duke standout transfer Jeremy Roach and consensus top-five high school recruit V.J. Edgecombe also spurned the Red Storm to play for Scott Drew and the Bears.
The rest of the St. John’s men’s basketball team’s 2024-25 non-conference schedule can be found here.