Saint John's basketball opens the 2025-26 season with a 5 p.m. game at Wisconsin-Oshkosh on Saturday, Nov. 8. – Listen Live (WBHR-660 AM) | Live Stats | Live Video

A LOOK AT THE JOHNNIES: There will be a lot of new faces in the rotation for the Saint John's University basketball team this season.

The Johnnies return just one of their top nine scorers (14.9 percent) from a team that finished 25-4, earned a share of the MIAC regular-season title, won the conference playoff championship and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Division III tournament.
 
The national postseason appearance was the Johnnies' 22nd (13th at the Division III level) and fifth in the last seven seasons. SJU ended the season ranked No. 13 in the final D3hoops.com Top 25 poll. 
 
The 20-win season was the Johnnies' 16th overall and sixth in the past nine seasons. 

It's a standard a mostly new group will be shooting for again this season.

Here is a look at how that group could stack up:

Two Seniors
The Johnnies return a pair of seniors in guards Kyle Johnson (Prior Lake, Minn./DeLaSalle) and Thomas Menk (Lewiston, Minn./Lewiston-Altura). 

Johnson appeared in all 29 games, with two starts, and averaged 8.3 and 1.9 rebounds per contest. He shot 40.1 percent (81-202) from the field and 39.1 percent (50-128) from behind the three-point arc in 17.7 minutes per game. 

Menk, meanwhile, missed the 2024-25 season due to injury. He played eight games in his sophomore year and averaged 5.8 minutes per contest. 
 
Other Returners
Five Johnnies – three juniors and two sophomores – who played 14 games or more last season and combined for a .486 shooting percentage (35-72) also return. 

Junior guard Baiden Bean (Farmington, Minn.) appeared in 18 games, while junior post Vincent Hillesheim (Minneapolis, Minn./Hopkins) and junior guard A.J. McCleery (Mahtomedi, Minn.) saw the court in 14 games apiece. Sophomore guard Liam Farniok (Minneapolis, Minn./Southwest) played 17 games and sophomore post Charlie Theis (Cottage Grove, Minn./East Ridge) posted a .579 shooting percentage (11-19) with 25 points and 14 rebounds in 16 contests. 
 
Successful in Sexton Arena
SJU led the MIAC in per-game attendance (1,012 avg.) for the third-straight season and finished sixth in NCAA Division III in 2024-25. 

The Johnnies boast a 480-153 (.758) all-time record at Sexton Arena (Warner Palaestra), including an 83-12 (.874) mark over the last eight seasons.
 
McKenzie Approaching 200 Wins
Head coach Pat McKenzie '04 begins his 11th season with a 199-57 record through 10 years at the helm of the Johnnie basketball team. 

McKenzie's .777 win percentage is the highest among active Division III coaches (minimum five seasons) and seventh in all divisions of basketball (DI, DII and DIII). He enters the season as the 14th-winningest coach in NCAA basketball (first in DIII) and the eighth to have earned his rank with just one team. 
 
The 2025-26 Schedule 
The Johnnies and the rest of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) are in the second year of a four-year trial in which conference play features 16 games (instead of 20). SJU will only play Bethel, Saint Mary's, St. Olaf and St. Scholastica once (and the other six MIAC members twice).
 
The Johnnies' nine non-conference opponents combined for a 152-95 (.615) record in 2024-25 and three joined SJU in the NCAA field.
 
SJU opens the 2025-26 season by visiting Wisconsin-Oshkosh Nov. 8 and returns home to host three non-conference opponents. A pair of programs from the American Rivers Conference (ARC), Central (Iowa) and Simpson (Iowa), come to Sexton Arena Nov. 14-15, and Whitworth (Wash.) makes the long-distance trip to Collegeville Nov. 22. 

Central won the ARC and advanced to the NCAA tournament. Aside from Simpson's 5-20 record last season, SJU's other eight non-conference opponents accumulated a 147-75 (.662) mark.
 
The Johnnies travel to Wisconsin-La Crosse for a matinee game on Thanksgiving Eve (Nov. 26) and venture to San Antonio for a pre-Christmas tournament Dec. 20-21 at Trinity (Texas). 

SJU faces the host Tigers in the opener and wrap up the weekend against Hardin-Simmons (Texas) the following day. La Crosse reached the NCAA's Elite 8, while Hardin-Simmons won the American Southwest Conference and advanced to the NCAA's Sweet 16. 

Non-conference play ends for SJU with a Jan. 12 home game vs. Minnesota-Morris.
 
SJU faces Division I St. Thomas in an exhibition game Dec. 11 at the new Lee & Penny Anderson Arena in St. Paul. The contest will serve as an exhibition for the Johnnies, but a regular-season game for UST. 

The exhibition game will be the first matchup between the two basketball programs since 2021, when the Tommies (then still MIAC members) won both meetings during the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season. - Purchase Tickets
 
Prior to that shortened season, SJU had won six of the previous eight meetings in the series. UST left the MIAC following the 2020-21 academic year for Division I and finished second in the Summit League last season with a 12-4 record (24-10 overall).
 
The defending MIAC regular-season and playoff champions begin conference play with back-to-back home games against St. Olaf (Dec. 3) and Concordia (Dec. 6) before traveling to St. Peter to face last year's co-champion Gustavus Adolphus on Dec. 10. 

SJU starts 2026 on the road at Augsburg on Jan. 3 before hosting Macalester (Jan. 7) and Hamline (Jan. 10) the following week. Four of SJU's next five games are on the road: Jan. 17 at Carleton, Jan. 21 at Bethel, Jan. 28 at Concordia and Jan. 31 at St. Scholastica. 

The lone home game during that stretch is Jan. 24's contest against Saint Mary's. 
 
The Johnnies then host Gustavus (Feb. 4) and Carleton (Feb. 7) before back-to-back trips to St. Paul at Macalester (Feb. 11) and Hamline (Feb. 14). The MIAC and regular-season schedule ends with Alumni/Senior Day against Augsburg on Feb. 21. 
 
The MIAC playoffs begin with the quarterfinals on Tuesday, Feb. 24, followed by the MIAC semifinals on Thursday, Feb. 26. The MIAC championship game, as well as the conference's automatic berth to the NCAA Division III tournament, will be determined on Saturday, Feb. 28. The high seed hosts in all three rounds.

A LOOK AT THE TITANS: Wisconsin-Oshkosh returns all five starters and a total of 15 letterwinners from a team that went 4-10 (13-13 overall) in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) last season. UWO was picked to finish fifth in the WIAC preseason coaches poll released Oct. 31. Sophomore (6-foot-0) guard Joey LaChapell (11.9 ppg.) and senior (6-foot-5) guard Carter Thomas (13.4 ppg.) were both named All-WIAC honorable mention, while LaChapell earned the conference's Kwik Trip Newcomer of the Year award. Along with LaChapell and Thomas, junior (6-foot-5) guard Michael Metcalf-Grassman, the 2024 Kwik Trip Newcomer of the Year and All-WIAC first-team selection, returns after missing much of last year due to an injury. He averaged 22.5 points and 7.8 rebounds in 13 games in 2024-25.

LAST YEAR'S MEETING: Then-No. 12 SJU opened its 2024-25 season with a 73-62 win over Wisconsin-Oshkosh last Nov. 9 (2024) in Sexton Arena.

SJU shot 35.9 percent (23-for-64) from the field and 32.4 percent (11-for-34) from behind the arc in the opener. The Johnnies, however, out-rebounded Oshkosh by a 43-36 margin, including 10-5 on the offensive glass, and scored 20 points off 15 Titan turnovers. The home team also scored an 8-4 advantage in second-chance points. 

Guard Kooper Vaughn '25 led the Johnnies with 25 points on a 6-for-12 showing from the floor, including 4-for-8 from three-point range, and added five rebounds in the win. The performance enabled Vaughn to become the 41st Johnnie in program history to reach 1,000 career points. 

Wing Ryan Thissen '24 followed with 21 points, his 21st game of 20 points or more, and passed Mitchell Kuck '16 for 14th in school history with 1,276 career points. Vaughn (9-10) and Thissen (4-4) combined to go 13-for-14 at the free-throw line.

Wing Griffin Rushin '25 totaled 10 points, seven rebounds, three assists, three blocks and two steals off the bench.

The Johnnies made five of their first six shot attempts to build an early 13-2 lead, but Oshkosh responded with a 12-2 run and scored the half's final six points to take a 33-30 deficit into halftime.

UWO opened the second half with an 8-2 advantage for its first lead of the game (38-35), but the Johnnies answered with a 12-0 run and led the rest of the way.

The Titans' Metcalf-Grassman led all scorers with 28 points, on 10-for-21 shooting, and added 10 rebounds for a double-double. The visitors shot 40.4 percent (23-for-57) for the game, but just 21.1 percent (4-for-19) from long range.

SERIES HISTORY: The Johnnies are 2-3 all-time against Titans: 1-1 in Oshkosh, Wis.; 1-1 in Collegeville; and 0-1 at a neutral site.

-Dec. 2, 1989: L, 69-73 at Oshkosh, Wis.
-Nov. 22, 1997: L, 59-70 in Collegeville
-Nov. 28, 2009: W, 79-71 at Oshkosh, Wis.
-Nov. 12, 2021: L, 55-89 at Bloomington, Ill. (Illinois Wesleyan)
-Nov. 9, 2024: W, 73-62 in Collegeville