Rick Pitino’s first loss at St. John’s was embarrassing. However, the 71-year-old head coach was “glad” that the Red Storm did not mount a comeback, and offered a unique perspective.
He tried not to make excuses, but his main justifications is completely valid. His team was injured.
Rick Pitino is in his first year back on the highest level of college basketball after being fired at Louisville in 2017 and coaching Iona in each of the last three seasons. At his age, St. John’s will be his last stop.
There are big plans in the works to return the program to its dominance in the ’80s and ’90s. It starts with high expectations for immediate success. The Red Storm were picked to finish fifth in the Big East’s preseason poll.
Things got off to a great start with a strong overtime win over Rutgers in an exhibition game last week. Things did not go so well on Sunday.
St. John’s paid $5,000 to Pace University, a Division-II program, for another exhibition game… and lost.
The Setters were picked to finish sixth in the D-II Northeast-10 Conference’s preseason poll. They beat the Red Storm 63-59.
It was a rough day for the home side, which shot just 26% throughout the entire game and finished 6-for-34 from the field during the second half. Pitino was not overly worried.
Rick Pitino had a unique perspective.
The St. John’s Red Storm were without its best two players: All-Big East selection Joel Soriano and top transfer Jordan Dingle, who was named the Ivy League Player of the Year last season. UMass transfer RJ Luis and Iona transfer Cruz Davis were also out. They were dealing with so many injuries throughout the week that the team had been practicing with coaches in place of players because they were so banged up. It certainly wasn’t ideal.
Pitino was untroubled by an exhibition game loss.
It’s an exhibition game. If the Knicks are playing the Wizards in an exhibition game, do they look ready if they lose or win? No, we’ll judge this after [our first regular season game against] Stony Brook, not tonight.
— Rick Pitino
Although there was something of a nonchalant attitude toward the loss, Pitino also remained extremely humble in defeat. He was very complimentary of the opponents.
I really was excited for Pace and the way they played every phase of the game to beat us. It wasn’t our injuries that lost the game, it was Pace’s great play. I’m really happy they won and I’m glad we did not come back against them because they deserved this victory and we did not. A much smaller team dominated us on the backboard and that can’t be.
— Rick Pitino
It actually made him really happy to see the Setters as excited as they were about the win.
When you play against these teams, they play like it’s the national championship. When I came off the court, they were screaming like they just won the national championship and it was so much fun for me to see that for them because they earned it.
They deserved it, they were well-drilled, well-coached, so that was fun to witness from my end. I really enjoyed that aspect of the game, watching them celebrate like that because they executed so well.
— Rick Pitino
As weird as it sounds, the two-time* national champion coach was actually grateful for the loss.
If I asked for anything for a Christmas present, it was this loss […]
We learned a lot about what we need to work on tonight and that’s what exhibition games are for […]
We have learned now that Stony Brook can come in here and beat us. We learned that today. We now know how much better we have to get.
— Rick Pitino
With all that being said, Pitino understands that losing to a D-II team is not good. Even with all of the injuries. He’d just rather have it happen now instead of when it counts!