St. John’s star wins Haggerty Award

St. John’s star R.J. Luis Jr. has been selected the Lt. Frank J. Haggerty Award winner for 2024-25 as announced Thursday by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association.

Presented annually since 1936 by the MBWA, the Haggerty Award denotes the area’s Division I Men’s Player of the Year. The Met realm encompasses 21 Division I programs, and 70 colleges and universities across all divisions.

Luis has entered the transfer portal and declared for the NBA Draft.

Luis, who was accompanied by a pair of Red Storm teammates — Kadary Richmond and Zuby Ejiofor — in being named to the All-Met First Team, was scheduled to be honored along with the All-Met teams from Divisions I, II and II, on Thursday evening during the 92nd MBWA Haggerty Awards dinner at the Sleepy Hollow Hotel & Conference Center in Tarrytown, NY.

The Haggerty dinner is the longest running, media-managed college basketball awards program in the United States.

A 6-7 junior guard/forward from Miami, FL, Luis — who also was named the Big East Conference player of the year — played his freshman season in 2022-23 at the University of Massachusetts, then transferred to St. John’s in what has to be regarded as one of the most impactful moves in college basketball.

Team success came in the form of a 20-13 record as a sophomore in 2023-24. Then, surrounded by a very talented squadron of teammates, Luis emerged as a shining star this past season as the Red Storm surged to a 31-5 overall record, an 18-2 mark that captured the Big East Conference regular season title, a dominating performance at Madison Square Garden in annexing the Big East tournament crown and a subsequent automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.

And now, Luis represents the 28th time a player from St. John’s has been awarded the MBWA’s Lt. Frank J. Haggerty Award as the most outstanding Division I men’s player in the Met realm. In addition, for the 2024-25 season, he received four All-American playing acclamations: AP, NABC and USBWA National Second Team; plus The Sporting News’ Third Team. Even further, for his achievements in the classroom — a 3.86 GPA majoring in Sports Management — Luis was selected as the College Sports Communicators Academic Team Member of the Year.

Starting in 32 games this past season, Luis produced a team-leading 637 points (18.2 ppg) along with 251 rebounds (7.2 rpg), numbers that both ranked fourth in the conference. He also had 71 assists and 49 steals while shooting 43.9% from the field and 74.7% at the free throw line. Luis led the Big East with 10 double-doubles, including a 29-point, 10-rebound performance in St. John’s Big East Tournament championship game victory over Creighton.

In his three seasons of college basketball, Luis has totaled 1,198 points and 479 rebounds.

Among those preceding Luis at St. John’s as Haggerty Award winners were three-time honoree Chris Mullin (1983-84-85) and two-time recipients Dick McGuire (1944, 1949) and Malik Sealy (1991-92). The most recent SJU player to earn the award prior to Luis was Shamorie Ponds in 2018.

The Haggerty Award arguably is the oldest and most prestigious honor given to a Met area college basketball player. The award is named in memory of Lt. Frank J. Haggerty, a shortstop in baseball and co-captain/forward on the basketball team who was the first student from St. John’s killed in World War II.

The Haggerty Awards dinner Thursday evening is to be Livestreamed via the MBWA website. Here is the link: https://metbasketballwriters.org/2025haggertylivestream.

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