Rick Pitino's 'guarantee' for St. John's program is right on schedule
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino talks to his team during a timeout against the Villanova Wildcats at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
It’s said that nothing is guaranteed. These days, St. John’s fans might beg to differ.
Rick Pitino made a promise on that March day he was introduced a little less than two years ago — “St. John’s is going to be back, I guarantee it” — and now they are seeing precisely what it looks like when such a promise is being fulfilled.
The program has become a destination for talented players, from blue-chip high schoolers like Simeon Wilcher to high-performing transfers like Kadary Richmond and Deivon Smith. Carnesecca Arena is never half-empty anymore and the days of drawing just 8,000 at the Garden are over. And the team on the court competes so hard and with such passion that opponents can struggle to keep up.
Rebuilding once-great programs is what Pitino has been doing for his entire career and his second seasons have typically been marked by quantum leaps.
St. John’s looks like a program in the process of making one right now after Tuesday night’s 63-58 win over Georgetown before 12,797 at the Garden. Starting guard Deivon Smith was out with a shoulder injury and it would be hard to point to any player who had a particularly good game, but still the Red Storm defied the circumstances, shook off a 15-point first-half deficit and prevailed.
St. John’s (15-3) has opened Big East play 6-1 for the first time since 1998-99, a season that saw them reach the NCAA Elite Eight.
“I feel like it’s happening,” RJ Luis Jr. said after Saturday’s win over Villanova. “People are starting to see what type of program we are. And what Coach Pitino is doing in his second year — everybody knows analytically what he does [in the second season] and what he means to the program.”
Pitino said Tuesday it’s about more than just the players believing it’s supposed to happen.
“The second year is understanding the desire to win — how important is winning,” he said. “It takes time to make winning so important to you. And tonight, winning was more important than any individual achievement . . . Nobody played well, but they put winning first and that’s the message of the second year: That winning just matters more than anything else.”
Pitino’s second-year advances are well chronicled. Providence had lived in the Big East cellar for a half dozen seasons and in two years, Pitino had the Friars in the Final Four.
Kentucky had been laid low by scandal and in two years, he had the Wildcats at 22-6 and ranked in the Top 10.
Once-great Louisville had slipped into mediocrity and irrelevance and in two years, Pitino helped the Cardinals go 25-7 and earn their first NCAA Tournament No. 4 seeding in 10 years.
Resurrecting St. John’s may stand as the heaviest because of changes in the college basketball landscape since he performed those feats. One change is the lure of NIL money, often more plentiful at schools with big-time football. The other is the free movement of players from program to program via the transfer portal and the need to not only recruit players out of high school but also out of other college programs.
Often last season, Pitino lamented the portal because it made it hard to build a team culture and program personality. But he retained four rotation regulars — Zuby Ejiofor, Wilcher, Luis and Brady Dunlap — and each is far better this year.
Seventh-ranked Marquette has largely eschewed the transfer portal and thrived on player retention.
“I think that’s why Marquette is ahead of all of us right now, their retention is very good,” Pitino said last month. “Now we all may catch up to them and we have the potential to have Zuby back, Brady back, Sim back, Ruben [Prey] back, [Lefteris Liotopoulos] back, RJ and Vince [Iwuchukwu]. That’d be awesome — I want to get that feeling that I had at Kentucky, Providence and Louisville where they really understand what it means to be a St John’s player.”
The development of the culture is the rising tide lifting the Red Storm boat. They have an identity now. Defense is the priority. The effort is always there. They don’t give up on plays. They are resourceful and find ways to win.
Hoyas coach Ed Cooley recognized that, saying, “For St John’s not to be ranked? . . . I don’t know who has a vote, but you’re blind . . . That’s one of the best teams we played all year. I don’t know if there’s a close second. This team is really, really good. They have some dynamite players. They defend at an elite level. They try to speed you up.”
Cooley sees it and everybody else should too. It’s Pitino Year Two. We’ve seen it before. And just as he promised.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
