Strong words
Pitino rant turning point in Johnnies' season
ST. JOHN’S season felt over. It had blown a 19-point, first-half lead to Seton Hall, falling to three games under .500 in league play.
Coach Rick Pitino called out several players by name in the postgame press conference, a media session that became national news when he pointed out their athletic shortcomings. It was the team’s eighth loss in 10 games, and the promising season had cratered.
As it turns out, it has been a turning point in the Hall of Fame coach’s first season in Queens.
Everything has gone right since. St. John’s has won four straight games — three by at least 14 points. The NCAA Tournament bubble has tilted decidedly in its favor, to the point the Johnnies are now in most projections to go dancing for the first time since 2019. Ivy League transfers Jordan Dingle and Chris Ledlum have found their games. The defense has drastically improved. The offense is humming.
After apologizing for the remarks three days later following a narrow win at Big East punching-bag Georgetown, Pitino has said it was a motivation ploy, a way to inspire. His players have had his back, saying it was out of love.
Whether you want to believe Pitino, that he was criticizing them to get more out of them, is up to you. At the time, it felt like a frustrated coach venting, angered by another second-half collapse. That said, he is known for finding unique ways to motivate.
Everything Pitino says, associate coach Steve Masiello told me before the season, has a reason behind it. At his introductory press conference last March, Pitino said, “I’m not for everyone.” He can be so hard on a team, “the players begin to rely on each other to lift each other,” Bulls coach and former Pitino player and assistant coach Billy Donovan told The Post back in October. Star point guard Daniss Jenkins said as much, telling The Post’s Steve Serby recently he suggested to his teammates to prove him wrong after the comments were made.
“That’s basically all Coach P. did, he went out and challenged us,” said Jenkins, the lone rotation player who played for Pitino at Iona University last year.
Really, it doesn’t matter if this was Pitino playing 3D chess or a coach telling everyone how he really felt. He apologized, and his players have responded to him. That’s always been what matters most in a coach: Can he get the most out of his team?
Lately, Pitino certainly has. He has fixed the second-half issues that had plagued the Red Storm. During the stretch when they lost eight of 10 games, they led at halftime in five of the losses. Dingle and Ledlum are performing as initially expected — Dingle as the consistent perimeter scorer that was needed. He is averaging 17 points in the current winning streak) and Ledlum is the glue at forward who is suddenly blocking shots at a high level (two per game over the past four contests) while scoring more efficiently despite playing on a bum right ankle. In the past three games, St. John’s has 67 assists and 15 turnovers — an impressive 4.5-1 ratio.
It has risen from 51 in the NET rankings to 34. The offense is now ranked 29th in the country in efficiency, the defense is up to 36th and held two of the best offensive teams in the Big East, No. 10 Creighton and Butler, to an average of 62.5 points in a pair of impressive wins.
St. John’s hasn’t played this well all year. It has now strung together three complete games, and the past two have come without Jenkins — by far the team’s MVP — being at his best.
“I know you guys don’t believe me, but what I said was all staged to try to get them to wake the hell up, and they woke up in a big way,” Pitino said after the Butler win. “I knew if we didn’t get better defensively, it was over. It was over. All we were doing was fouling, we weren’t stopping people, and I knew it was over.
“Like Al McGuire said, when you reach a stage [in your career] and you’re afraid to get on your players, it’s time for you to retire, and he did retire.”
Now, it’s not only not over, but the St. John’s season now feels full of possibilities — a fifth-place finish and bye in the Big East Tournament, a spot in the main draw of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015. Who knows, maybe even a run in the dance and the school’s first tournament victory in 24 years.
It all began with that press conference, the moment this once-derailed season started to find its way back on the tracks. Intentional or not, motivational or otherwise, that criticism ignited a turnaround few could’ve seen coming.