If the NCAA Tournament started now, St. John’s would be a No. 4 seed.

In the selection committee’s 16-team, made-for-television reveal on Saturday, the Johnnies were slotted as the final No. 4 seed in the East Region.

That means they would be headed to Newark for the second weekend if they advanced that far to play top-seeded Duke.

Big East-leading St. John’s (21-4, 12-2) was the lone team from the conference among the top 16.

The Johnnies narrowly beat out Marquette and Michigan State for the last spot, committee chair Bubba Cunningham said on the show.

They have wins over three projected at-large teams: Connecticut, Marquette and New Mexico.

Their four losses have come by a combined seven points, they sit at No. 22 in the NET rankings — the sorting tool the committee uses to evaluate teams — and are a solid 9-4 in Quad 1 and 2 games without a sub-Quad 1 loss.

“They should be thrilled with today,” said Michael DeCourcy, the Fox Sports bracketologist. “It says the [committee] respects their body of work. It says they respect what the numbers say about them, and they still have great opportunities ahead of them with three tough regular-season games, plus two more in a best-case scenario in the conference tournament.”

This is all a projection, of course, with Selection Sunday still a month away. The question now is, can the Johnnies get higher by then?

As DeCourcy noted, they still have three major games left. No. 24 Creighton visits the Garden on Sunday, two-time defending champion UConn is in town a week later and the Johnnies visit Marquette on the last day of the regular season.

JUST IN: Committee's top 16 in order, revealed on CBS.

1. Auburn
2. Alabama
3. Duke
4. Florida
5. Tennessee
6. Texas A&M
7. Purdue
8. Houston
9. Iowa St.
10. Kentucky
11. Wisconsin
12. Arizona
13. Texas Tech
14. Michigan
15. Kansas
16. St. John’s pic.twitter.com/CvFcAa0Mxi

— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) February 15, 2025

There is also the Big East Tournament.

“I think a three seed is definitely realistic with what they have remaining. They still have enough opportunities,” said established bracketologist Brad Wachtel of Facts & Bracks. “They can definitely get up to a No. 3. A No. 2 seed is pushing it a little bit. They almost have to run the table to get that high. … The only issue I will say is where St. John’s is at a disadvantage is the number of opportunities all these other teams have that are ahead of them right now. If St. John’s doesn’t take two of three [against Creighton, Marquette and Connecticut], I don’t see moving them up to reach their [seed] ceiling.”

In his latest update, Wachtel had St. John’s as one of his top No. 5 seeds, behind Ole Miss of the SEC on the four-seed line.

The committee saw it differently, giving the Johnnies the nod.

The two teams have similar résumés. One edge St. John’s has is that it is rated higher in predictive metrics like KenPom, BPI and Torvik that ranks teams based on how well they are playing relative to their opponents.

St. John’s averages out to 20 in those metrics compared to Ole Miss at 24. It also has two fewer losses.

“Ole Miss has more quality wins than St. John’s does. Their metrics across the board are slightly worse,” Wachtel said. “Maybe that means the metrics are playing a little more of a role than they have in the past. … Their predictive [metrics] are almost in line with their results metrics, which I think is a great thing to have and why they ended up where they ended up.”