In case you haven’t noticed, this is the year of Rick Pitino.
His Vice video halftime speech went viral. He did a ”Tonight Show” skit with Jimmy Fallon. His social media accounts are cooking. His St. John’s Red Storm won the Big East regular season basketball championship. Then it won the Big East Tournament.
Now Rick Pitino is going to win the NCAA Tournament.
You heard it here first. OK, so maybe not first. Plenty of seats are occupied on the Red Storm bandwagon. Here’s why I climbed aboard.
St. John’s boasts the No. 1 defense in college basketball. Ken Pomeroy says so. His deep dive into the numbers ranks the Red Storm first in adjusted defensive efficiency.
The Johnnies didn’t defend in any old league either. They did so in the Big East. You know, the conference that produced the reigning back-to-back national champion UConn Huskies. It’s also the conference that put five teams in the current 68-team tournament.
Marisa Mazzuca of New Jersey, who’s dad went to St. John’s, takes a photo with Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino, whose team is the No. 2 seed in the NCAA West Regional. Kris Craig USA TODAY NETWORK
How important is defense in March Madness? Look at last season’s Huskies. In the 2024 tourney, not a single opponent shot better than 44.8 percent from the floor against Danny Hurley’s team. The six UConn victims combined to make 33 of 110 shots from 3-point range for 27.3 percent. (Not good.) Not one of the six scored more than 72 points. (Not good, at all.)
It’s an interesting transformation for Coach P. You remember the young coach who arrived at UK two years removed from guiding Providence to the 1987 Final Four. Those Friars beat foes with a blizzard of 3-pointers. Pitino’s first Kentucky teams did the same.
This season, only 23 percent of St. John’s points have come on 3-pointers. That ranks 355th out of 364 teams nationally. The Red Storm makes only 30.3 percent of its 3-point attempts. That ranks 346th nationally.
This illustrates Pitino’s genius, however. He’s evolved. He’s adapted. He’s taken the talent he has on this particular roster and figured out how to squeeze the most out of that talent. It’s called coaching.
True, Mike Repole helped accumulate that talent. A St. John’s alumnus, Repole is the billionaire who started VitaminWater and Body Armour and who is heavily involved in horse racing. In fact, Repole’s No. 1 goal is to win a Kentucky Derby.
Last year, Repole owned Fierceness, favorite in the race. And during a Derby week media scrum outside his barn, Repole let it slip — on purpose? — that Seton Hall star Kadary Richmond was about to transfer to St. John’s. How did Reploe know? We all knew how Repole knew.
Still, if Repole’s NIL support helped attract players, Pitino coached those players. And let’s be honest, there’s no one better in the business. Coach P has won at Boston University, at Providence, at Kentucky (1996 national title), at Louisville (2013 national title, despite the “vacated” in the record book), at Iona and now at St. John’s. He’s 72 years old and still winning.
Rick Pitino and the St. John’s University men’s basketball team performed a sea shanty during the March 6 “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.” Screenshot via ‘The Tonight Show’ YouTube
Here’s another reason Pitino is going to win the national championship: Karma.
We all know Big Blue Nation turned on its beloved Rick Pitino when the former UK coach became the Louisville coach. (Benedict Rick!) But when Kentucky named Mark Pope, the captain on Pitino’s 1996 national championship team, to replace John Calipari, feelings changed.
Not only did Pitino praise the hire in multiple interviews, he accepted Pope’s invitation to attend Big Blue Madness. He did so a bit reluctantly. In fact, Pitino told friends he expected to be showered with the same boos he received on previous trips to Rupp Arena.
At Madness, he wasn’t booed. He was cheered. By a packed house. Those who know Pitino say he wasn’t just grateful for the crowd’s reaction, he was sincerely touched. Five months later, St. John’s is 30-4 and the No. 2 seed in the West Regional.
Before the brackets were announced, I was all set to pick SEC Tournament champion Florida to cut down the nets in San Antonio. That was until I saw No. 1 seed Florida matched in the same bracket with Rick Pitino.
So I’m picking St. John’s. I’m not only picking St. John’s to win the West Regional, but to win the whole darn thing.
After all, this is the year of Ricky P.
