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Legendary college basketball coach Rick Pitino has been around the block a time or two. So when Pitino tried to send a message to his St. John’s team ahead of their matchup against UConn on Wednesday, perhaps it should have listened.
Instead, the Red Storm got blown out in both historic and embarrassing fashion, proving Pitino’s point in the process and hurting their NCAA Tournament standing.
The 15th-ranked Red Storm entered the contest against the sixth-ranked Huskies at 22-5 and well inside the NCAA Tournament bubble, even in a down year in the Big East.
Despite that, Pitino, who has two national championships and seven Final Four appearances on his resume, didn’t seem to appreciate his team’s lack of togetherness.
Just finished breakfast in Hartford with the team. 13 players and 5 coaches and a special priest. All looking at their phones. No conversing 🤦🏻♂️ -Next discussion coming with my wonderful group 😀
— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) February 25, 2026
“Just finished breakfast in Hartford with the team. 13 players and 5 coaches and a special priest. All looking at their phones. No conversing 🤦🏻♂️ -Next discussion coming with my wonderful group 😀,” Pitino posted on X.
St. John’s Lack Of Unity Got Them Destroyed By UConn
Not 12 hours after Pitino fired off the post about his team’s lack of unity, it took the floor against the Huskies and got absolutely blown out.
St. John’s went into the half trailing 41-26, which, while not great, wasn’t an insurmountable deficit.
However, the Red Storm missed each of its final 24 field goal attempts over the last 17:28 of the game. According to ESPN’s Jeff Borzello, it marked the longest game-ending streak by a Division I team in at least the last eight seasons.
Afterward, Pitino spoke on what his team can take away from the experience. But he also took the blame for his team not playing more as a unit.
“It’s all on me,” Pitino said. I’m very disappointed in our performance, offensively, especially, sharing the ball, moving the ball. It’s all on me.
“I don’t know what it is. All I know is we didn’t play good offense,” Pitino said. “We did things that we’ve never done. And again, it’s something that I’ve got to question about myself, and I will question it because the team did not do the things we’ve done in the last 13 games.”
In the latest edition of ESPN’s Bracketology, Joe Lunardi had St. John’s as a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. So it would take a historic collapse from here to be at risk of missing the tournament. But losing a game by 32 sure won’t help the seeding committee’s view of the Red Storm.