When No. 7 John’s Beat Butler on Wednesday evening, Red Storm dressed at least part of the Big East title for the first time since 1992.
Cue Rick Pitino: “We’re not interested in sharing anything.”
St. John’s gets full pitino experience: an unthinkable personality, some eye-catching quotes for better or worse and a lot of winning.
Maybe we should all have seen this come. You can make the argument that no modern coach does a better job of introducing their ethos into a new program and getting almost imediate results.
All his team, from Providence to Kentucky to Louisville and even Iona, made a dramatic hope between year 1 and year 2, which was documented here by College Basket Mensch Tilly Donovan. At St. John’s ended Pitino’s first season with a 20-13 record and a NCAA tournament nub-not the worst place to start.
Now the red storm is 25-4 and a realistic candidate for Final Four.
Think back to February 18, 2024, when St. John’s blew a 19-point lead at home to lose to Seton Hall. Pitino put in his players after the game.
“We are so nonathletic that we can’t protect anyone without Fouling,” Pitino said before naming five of his players, calling them “slowly sideways” or “physically weak.”
It felt brutal at that time. You do it behind closed doors, not at the microphone, some explained (I may have been among them). But the wiser among us could recognize a motivating tactic when they saw one.
Since that day, St. John’s went a ridiculous 31-5. Talk about a turning point.
Certainly this year’s group is very different from last year. Such is life in the transfer portal. But Pitino has proven well equipped for it. At Big East Media Day he did not hesitate to talk about the money being on the table now instead of it.
But you feel for his past or his persona, this is a man who knows how to attract talent. And then he pushes out their full potential.
This season he collected a transfer of the entire transfer of Kadary Richmond, Deivon Smith and Aaron Scott while building Zuby Ejiofor to a real threat on the neighborhood (from 4.3 points and 3.1 returns per match last year to 14.0 ppg and 8.1 RPG NOW). Then there is Captain RJ Luis Jr. On the wing, the leading painter who does a bit of everything well.
Deputy cameras who shot a document series caught Pitino who gave his players a fiery half -time earlier this season when they lost to Providence. Free from excavations about physical weakness and lateral slowness, it was a message to learn how to handle adversities instead of withering before it. St. John’s held Providence to 28 points during the second half of that game and won 72-70 on Ejiofors last second shot.
His player was kicked up, but Pitino’s son Richard, the coach of New Mexico, had a different reaction. “PTSD for the time I didn’t make my bed,” he wrote on X.
As a father, as a son. They will keep quips and the winnings to back them up.
