Rick Pitino discusses St. John’s turnaround progress before game vs. Rutgers: ‘Winning is the priority’
NEW YORK — At his introductory press conference in March, St. John’s men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino vowed to revitalize a Red Storm team that hasn’t brought much thunder the past two decades.
On Saturday, Pitino will find out how close he is to making that return to relevance a reality.
That’s when new-look St. John’s is set to host Rutgers for an exhibition at Queen’s Carnesecca Arena in the first game of the Pitino era. Pitino, a two-time NCAA champion, says he won’t have realistic expectations for his team in year one until he sees his players take the floor.
“Rutgers is going to tell us a lot,” Pitino said Tuesday at St. John’s media day. “If we get our doors blown off by Rutgers, we know we have a lot of work to do.”
Pitino, 71, came over from Iona with the goal of rebuilding a once-proud St. John’s program that’s only made three NCAA Tournament appearances since 2002 and none in the past four seasons.
The Red Storm roster looks almost entirely different from last season’s, with star center Joel Soriano and reserve forward Drissa Traore the only holdovers. Three players — including trusted point guard Daniss Jenkins — joined Pitino from Iona, while their fellow transfers include a reigning national champion in guard Nahiem Alleyne from UConn.
Pitino raved Tuesday about his team’s depth, saying the 11 pro scouts who have watched St. John’s describe it as a strength. The Red Storm received votes for the AP preseason Top 25 poll but begin the year unranked.
“I want to see where our offense is, where our defense is, where our presses are,” Pitino said. “Every aspect of it, I want to see, because Rutgers will be solid defensively. They’ll be solid on the backboard. They’ll be solid offensively. … I’m looking forward to that.”
Pitino is one of two coaches to take three different schools to the Final Four. He won titles with Kentucky in 1996 and Louisville in 2013, though that second championship was later vacated due to a sex scandal involving recruits.
Louisville fired Pitino in 2017 during a federal investigation into fraud and corruption in college basketball. Iona hired him in 2020 after he spent more than a year coaching in Greece.
Pitino led Iona to two NCAA Tournament appearances in his three years there. Jenkins was the only player to start every game for 27-8 Iona last season, averaging 15.6 points and 4.9 assists.
“The challenge is bringing the culture here,” Jenkins said Tuesday. “You have to build the culture. When you lose, obviously you didn’t do something right, so you have to get rid of that way. Now, we just have to bring the culture back. We have to show the culture that Rick Pitino wants: the winning culture.”
A six-year contract with St. John’s marks a homecoming for Pitino, who hails from Long Island and played basketball at St. Dominic High School in Oyster Bay. During the 1980s, he served as an assistant and head coach of the Knicks.
As the head coach, Pitino took over a 24-win Knicks team and turned it into a 52-win contender by his second season. He speaks now about leading a similar transformation at St. John’s, which Soriano says is “long overdue.”
“He has an aura around him,” Soriano said Tuesday. “He’s a Hall of Fame coach, so when he announced that he was going to be here for the job, it brought a different type of excitement to New York City.
“Just his demeanor towards the game, he’s a basketball freak. He eats, sleeps basketball. I feel his difference. He’s always on me [about] any little thing. His attention to detail is amazing. I’ve never seen it from any type of coach.”
St. John’s opens its regular season at home on Nov. 7 against Stony Brook; plays Michigan at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 13; and kicks off Big East Conference play in late December with games against Xavier and UConn.
“Right now, we’re talking to Duke about playing at Arthur Ashe Stadium next year in the opening game,” Pitino said Tuesday. “We’re talking about bringing Alabama in with a home-and-home at Madison Square Garden. We want to get back to playing great teams all the time.”
For Pitino, it’s all about building the St. John’s brand. After becoming head coach, Pitino noticed his team’s low Twitter and Instagram follower totals, which both sit below 40,000, and asked his communications staff how he can help them grow.
He was given a simple answer: win.
“That’s pretty much the case,” Pitino said. “Winning is the priority.”
