Five St. John’s Men’s Basketball Players Earn All-Met Honors

4/23/2025 9:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Watch Haggerty Awards Ceremony Live MBWA Release

Zuby Ejiofor, RJ Luis Jr. and Kadary Richmond named to All-Met First Team; Deivon Smith and Aaron Scott tabbed All-Met Honorable Mention

QUEENS, N.Y. – Five St. John's men's basketball players were honored as 2024-25 All-Met selections by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers' Association (MBWA) on Wednesday. Zuby Ejiofor, RJ Luis Jr. and Kadary Richmond were named to the All-Met First Team while Aaron Scott and Deivon Smith were tabbed All-Met Honorable Mention.

St. John's landed three players on the All-Met First Team for the sixth time in MBWA history and first time since 2000 when Erick Barkley, Lavor Postell and Bootsy Thornton received the recognition. St. John's is the only school to ever have three All-Met First Team selections in the same year, reaching the mark in 1983, 1985, 1986, 1999, 2000 and now 2025. The trio will be recognized at 92^nd Annual MBWA All-Met Haggerty Awards Dinner on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Sleepy Hollow Hotel in Tarrytown, N.Y. A live video stream of the event can be viewed here.

The Red Storm honorees led St. John's to BIG EAST Regular Season and Tournament Championships as the team's top five scorers combined for 63.0 points per game. The group was instrumental in returning the Johnnies back to national prominence reaching the top five in the national rankings while matching a program record for single-season victories with 31.

The 2024-25 BIG EAST Player of the Year and consensus Second Team All-American, Luis shined for the Red Storm during the 2024-25 campaign averaging 18.2 points and 7.2 rebounds per contest. The junior wing finished in double-figures in 33 of 35 contests and tallied 15 20-plus point performances to go along with a league-leading 10 double-doubles. Last week, the Miami native was tabbed the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for NCAA Division I Men's Basketball.

Ejiofor lands on the All-Met First Team following an impressive junior season in 2024-25. After playing a reserve role during his first year in Queens, the big man blossomed into a force in the paint and was named the BIG EAST's Most Improved Player after averaging 14.7 points and 8.1 rebounds. The All-BIG EAST First Team selection tied with Luis for the league-lead in double-doubles (10) and shot a team-best 57.7 percent from the field. The Garland, Texas native shattered St. John's BIG EAST Tournament scoring record exploding for a career-high 33 points in the semifinal victory over Marquette.

Richmond started 35 of 36 contests in his final collegiate season at St. John's. The Brooklyn native filled the box score logging 12.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.0 steals per game. The All-BIG EAST First Team honoree etched his name in the history books becoming the first St. John's player to record a triple-double since Ron Artest in 1999, going for 10 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists in the regular season finale overtime win at Marquette on March 8. The 6-foot-6 floor general ranked top-25 in NCAA Division I dishing out 191 assists and closed out his collegiate career with 1,731 points, 803 rebounds and 699 total assists.

Smith was a spark plug for the Johnnies after transferring over from Utah and earned All-Met Honorable Mention recognition. The play-making guard averaged 9.3 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.9 steals per game. A Decatur, Ga. native, Smith ranked top-10 in the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio (6^th, 2.4) and assists per game (10^th, 3.9). The senior finished the year with three doubles-doubles.

A 3-and-D specialist and the unsung hero on the defensive end of the No. 2 ranked team in KenPom Defensive Efficiency, Scott earned All-Met Honorable Mention recognition. The North Texas transfer recorded 8.4 points, 4.5 rebounds and shot a team-high 81.0 percent free throw line. Scott knocked down five 3-pointers in contests against Baylor and Villanova becoming the first player to hit five or more triples in multiple games since Julian Champagnie during the 2021-22 season.