Sports

Rick Pitino Rejects That St. John’s Success Was Built By NIL Money Despite Huge Financial Budget

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Rick Pitino St. John's NIL
iStockphoto / © Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Rick Pitino brought a Big East title to St. John’s for the first time since 2000 in just his second year as the college basketball coach in Queens. He did so with an NIL budget of approximately $4 million.

However, the 72-year-old wants to be very clear that his team was not built by money.

Prior to the hire of Pitino, the Red Storm had not reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in more than 25 years. They won their last conference championship during the first year of the millennium. Now they are on a fast track to the Final Four after winning the Big East regular season title and tournament.

A large part of the quick turnaround stems from coaching. Pitino wins. It’s what he does. The other part of the turnaround stems from roster management, which has a direct tie to finances. St. John’s has the largest NIL budget in the conference.

Rick Pitino tapped into his rolodex to secure a large monetary backing for his program. He issued a blunt warning to college basketball about his plans to spend big and even went so far as to call on Wall Street for NIL donations. Mike Repole was the biggest donor of them all.

By Pitino’s estimate, the billionaire business executive was responsible for approximately 50% of the multi-million dollar operation. Most All of those funds went toward player acquisitions through the transfer portal. Seton Hall straight up could not afford to pay Kadary Richmond enough money to keep him on the team so the Red Storm swooped in with a much bigger offer and stole him away. The 6-foot-6 senior is averaging 12.7 points on 49% shooting, 6.4 rebounds and 5.4 assists this season. He might be the best point guard in the country and it would be hard to argue otherwise.

Deivon Smith also got paid a lot of money to transfer to St. John’s on what amounts a one-year deal after stops at Mississippi State, Georgia Tech and Utah. He is averaging 9.2 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists.

With that being said, R.J. Luis Jr. and Zuby Ejiofor are Pitino’s leading scorers and rebounders. They transferred over from Kansas and UMass as guys who flew largely under the radar. They both burst onto the scene as legitimate stars this season after a lesser role with the Red Storm last season.

Thus, neither Luis nor Ejiofor are getting paid as much as Smith or Richmond. Therein lies Rick Pitino’s point about NIL. Money is not the only reason that St. John’s is winning.

First of all, I think there’s a lot of misrepresentation about NIL. NIL didn’t get us this team because Zuby and RJ are very low-paid players. That’s nonsense about NIL.

— Rick Pitino

He believes there is a disconnect between outside perspective and reality.

Somebody asked me about Zuby and RJ. You don’t know what you are getting. Zuby didn’t even play at Kansas. RJ was a good freshman [at UMass], solid, but you didn’t know what you were getting. So here are two stars, very underpaid. I’m sure they’ll be at [general manager] Matt [Abdelmassih’s] window as soon as the season ends, but they’re not going anywhere.

So you build a team by making sure you understand the whole puzzle of what goes into it, and people just mischaracterize the NIL and [how] St. John’s has been built. St. John’s didn’t get built by the NIL. St. John’s got built with the character of the players, and certainly we are excited to have these young men.

— Rick Pitino

Even if Luis and Ejiofor are due for pay raises next season, they are not worried about finances. Rick Pitino has made it so that his team’s only goal is to win.

I appreciate him for that, but, man, I’m the type of person that doesn’t really care about that NIL stuff. All I care about is winning and going there and playing for Johnnies Nation and playing for my teammates. These are the moments that I play for. I play for championships and making history.

— Zuby Ejiofor

So, yes, NIL played a big role in the rapid rise of Red Storm basketball but the success goes much deeper than it might appear on the surface. The two best players on St. John’s in terms of statistics are two of the lowest-paid players on the team. Money helps. It is not everything!