Zuby Ejiofor needed a lot of work.
He was hesitant, unsure of himself, and not quite ready for the job.
No, this had nothing to do with basketball.
It was his pregame speeches.
“They may have been some of the worst pregame speeches that I’ve heard in my entire lifetime,” teammate Brady Dunlap recalled with a laugh on Monday during a Name, Image & Likeness event at Applebees. “Me and [Simeon Wilcher] voiced our frustrations. … He was like ‘Team on three.’ We weren’t doing ‘Team on three.’ ”
Like his game, Ejiofor improved a ton in that regard, too.
He found his voice as St. John’s vocal leader, a role handed down to him by Daniss Jenkins.
“He was terrible, but he’s gotten better,” Kadary Richmond joked. “I guess that comes with a little confidence, a little pep in your step. He’s the vocal guy, so we let him do his thing.”
He certainly has found his game this year, keying the sixth-ranked Johnnies’ best regular season in 25 years.
The league’s coaches saw it, naming him to the conference’s first team on Sunday and picking him as the Big East’s Most Improved Player a day later.
The honor was a given, after the 6-foot-9 junior went from Joel Soriano’s backup to one of the best big men in the country.
The nation’s leading offensive rebounder at 4.3 boards per game, he is averaging 14.1 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.5 assists.
The fan favorite has also hit the two biggest shots of this magical season, buzzer-beaters to beat Providence and Marquette on the road.
He’s also the backbone to the Johnnies’ third-ranked defense in terms of efficiency.
A four-star recruit out of Texas, Ejiofor started his career at Kansas.
After one season of limited playing time, he entered the transfer portal and picked St. John’s over Villanova, TCU and San Diego State.
He has blossomed in Queens under Rick Pitino.
Ejiofor only played limited minutes a season ago.
In the offseason, St. John’s recruited other big men, and brought in Vince Iwukchukwu from USC.
Ejiofor was happy for the help inside, not put off by the addition.
“A lot of people might have gone a different path or up and left after the year he had last year, not playing a lot,” Richmond said.
Not Ejiofor.
He was determined to earn a major role.
“I knew that I had to show a little bit more than I had last year,” he said.
He’s shown himself to be one of the top forwards in the country.
St. John’s is a different team when Ejiofor is on the court, outscoring the opposition by 21 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor compared to when he is on the bench, according to the analytics website EvanMiya.com.
“It’s a season I really couldn’t have imagined,” Ejiofor said. “It’s something that really just came out of nowhere honestly. To receive those awards is really special. … Our main focus was just winning and that’s how it’s been the entire year. Coach ‘P’ says play for the name on the front and the back prospers. That’s what we’ve been doing all year.”
More awards for St. John’s could be on the way.
Pitino is expected to be named the Big East Coach of the Year on Wednesday, while RJ Luis Jr. is a strong contender to be St. John’s first Player of the Year since Walter Berry in 1986.
Ejiofor is rooting for Luis, his close friend, to make Red Storm history.
“There’s no one more deserving of that award. We’re the top seed, we know exactly what he brings to the table every single night,” Ejiofor said. “The award is his to get. I’m really ecstatic and hoping to see what happens on Wednesday.”