One school does not play last Saturday of season and of course shu gets the fs1 window

Rick Pitino takes responsibility for St. John’s season spiraling​

By Zach Braziller

Two days after his press conference drew national headlines for the criticism of his St. John’s players, Rick Pitino took ownership of this declining season.

In a wide-ranging, exclusive interview with The Post that included his take on the future of the program, what changes he plans to make in formulating next season’s roster and the criticism he has received of late, the Hall of Fame coach accepted responsibility for the direction of the year.

“I think I’m maximizing everything we can possibly maximize, but that hasn’t been enough, so we’re still losing. That’s on me,” Pitino said. “I take losing very personally, I take losing to heart, I take losing to bed. It eats at me.”

He added: “I think we all can get better. I can get better. Everything can get better. But there’s no question about it, we could’ve won games that we lost. We’ve been competitive. I don’t give myself high grades at all because we’re losing.”

Nothing has gone right of late for the Johnnies, who have seen their once-promising season fade fast.

Once tied atop the Big East at 4-1, their best start in league play since the 2000-01 season, St. John’s has lost eight of the last 10 games to fall out of at-large NCAA Tournament consideration and drop into ninth place in the conference.

It held the lead at halftime in five of those losses and really only had no chance in the final minutes of losses to No. 1 Connecticut and at Seton Hall.

Pitino is planning to change how he treats halftime, in an attempt to shake things up.

“We go in and we’re very analytical. We point out every statistical category, every metric that has gone wrong, gone bad, what we have to do in the second half,” Pitino said. “I think I’m going to get away from that little bit and be a little bit more motivational.”

After Sunday’s loss to Seton Hall, in which the Red Storm (14-12, 6-9) blew a 19-point first-half lead, Pitino said this was the “the most unenjoyable experience of my life.”

He lamented the physical shortcomings of several players and said the season was lost last spring when he and his staff, needing to almost completely turn over the roster after taking over in late March, recruited transfers who didn’t fit his style of play.

He has received an avalanche of criticism in the days since those comments.

“You take the good with the bad. You take the criticism like a man. And certainly you take the accolades humbly, whatever it may be,” he said. “When you lose, you’re going to get criticism and when something goes wrong you’re going to get criticism. That’s the nature of being a head coach and a leader. You don’t have sour grapes. You take it like a man. All my life I’ve handled adversity. This is no different. This is very, very minuscule compared to what I’ve been through in my life. It’s fine, you’re onto the next game.”

He didn’t walk back those comments Tuesday, saying he wanted his players to read them.

He pushed back on the narrative that he ripped them, instead stating he was “very calm, very collected in my thoughts,” and was merely answering a question about why St. John’s sent Seton Hall to the free-throw line 37 times. Plenty of coaches, he said, have questioned their teams toughness this year.

Pitino insisted he is preparing them for life after college. Several of his seniors will go on to play professionally overseas and they will face obstacles much tougher than a critical coach.

“I tell them all the time, if you’re in Europe right now and you have two bad games they will cut you, not pay you, you will take them to FIBA court,” he said. “I want them to understand that this [Name, Image & Likeness] world that they live in is not reality. They’re getting ready to move on, six of them, they all want to play overseas.

“My players get a lot of love, my players get a lot of attention, my players all have great NIL deals. I’m preparing six guys for a very difficult time that lies ahead for them in the basketball world, and I want to prepare them the right way to be mentally and physically tough, to be able to handle any situation.”

Some took Pitino’s comments as a sign he may be having second thoughts about leaving Iona for St. John’s, but he said it at the time and reiterated Tuesday that he has not regretted the decision at all.

Nothing that has happened this year has changed his mind about what can happen at the Queens school or his commitment to turning the program around.

The Johnnies obviously will need to do better in the transfer portal this spring, but they are better positioned to do so and won’t have to rely on the opinion of others, which was the case last offseason with so many spots to fill and not a lot of time.

“It’s 100 percent going to happen. There’s not a doubt in my mind,” Pitino said. “If there was a doubt in my mind, I would turn the job over to someone else and let the job be done. There’s not even a shadow of a doubt in my mind it’s going to be done.

“I know how to grow a program. We will grow it the right way. It’s not St. John’s. It has nothing to do with St. John’s. St. John’s is every bit as good as Villanova, every bit as good as Providence, every bit as good as Marquette. Now Connecticut is a different breed altogether. They’ve stood the test of time with their greatness. … We [can be] every bit as good as anybody else in this conference.”

And is worth the read:

I thought disney doesn't cater to big east

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I know I’m getting way ahead of myself and should only be concerned about the next game. However, Creighton, Marquette and SHU all have 10 wins. If Creighton beats Marquette in March, we beat Creighton and neither of them beats UCONN and the 3 teams finish tied we would all be 2-2 against each other but get the 2 seed based on the only team of the 3 which beat the team above us (UConn). Again very unlikely scenario but who have thought in December that this would be possible in late February.

FINAL

• 
  #2 Purdue 12-3
  69
• 
  Ohio State 5-10
  73

Saw this on X/Twitter. I couldn’t validate as I don’t have access to visualize NJ sports teams on draft kings, but Vegas has us as one of the best final 4 bets apparently from this tweet

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All you see is last 4 in last 4 out with Butler ahead of us. Huh? I’m assuming this guy has 7 Big 10 teams getting is as of now which would be all the evidence you need that the Big 10 is more about biased Media. No credibility here for Mike.

Compliments of Zags, who just eats this kinda stuff up. You have to read all of the tweets from Zags to get the full flavor.


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Kay on his talk show today devoted a good 40 minutes absolutely ripping into Pitino for his throwing his players under the bus and blaming them for their loss to SH and the season in general. All the negatives posted here about Pitino’s comments were raised by Kay and his co-hosts and summed up the discussion by questioning who would want to play for him given how he blames every one else , especially his players for their poor season.

Not sure if this site was previously posted. Looks like a rationale percentage to each school and their likelihood of getting into the tourney in order of net ranking.

A few examples
- SHU at 74 percent
- Gonzaga 53 percent
- Villanova 72 percent (not getting that one)
- Colorado 24 percent
- Wake Forest 40 percent
- Providence 50 percent
- Butler 46 percent
- St. John’s 27 percent
- Cinn 58 percent


Thought they were fair.

NCAA College Basketball on TeamRankings.com

College basketball picks and predictions, plus NCAA basketball odds, stats, power rankings, strength of schedule, SOS, standings and projections.

www.teamrankings.com

Figured I'd give this a shot here:
I either never got, or accidentally deleted, the usual email from the SHU ticket office with the form to buy BET strips. I didn't think of it until recently, and now SHU's allotment is sold out. Does anyone have a strip or two extra they'd be interested in selling? The reseller market for this tournament, even for the Thursday games, is already astronomical. I've been buying tickets for this tourney for ~25 years, and you can usually get good seats for a reasonable amount this far ahead of time, even through the re-sellers. Like everything else, it's gone bananas, and buying through SHU is always the way to go.

Much appreciated!

He starts Tubek over Dre....and even over Coleman opens up an 8 point lead, he brings in Dre who plays the rest of the game with good results. Why didn't he just start Dre? I'm sure he had his reasons, but I'll be damned if I know what they were. Anyway, a great win. When we were down 19, I threw in the towel...I'm glad our coach and our team didn't do the same!!

Earlier this week I said even with a win Kenpom would still have the Pirates 9th.

Well, guess what? 9th it is. 17 spots behind St John's.

By Zack Cziryak

The Seton Hall Pirates rallied to overcome a 19-point deficit and dispatch the St. John’s Red Storm in the programs’ first-ever game at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y. on Sunday evening.

The turning point of what had become a forgettable matchup on Long Island changed at the 3:25 mark of the first half when Hall Head Coach Shaheen Holloway was called for a technical foul. Down 15 points at the time, Holloway’s consternation with an offensive foul call against Pirate point guard Kadary Richmond would lead to St. John’s extending the lead to 17 on the technical free throws and then a game-high 19 on the ensuing awarded possession after the Johnnies picked apart the Pirate zone. The result: 38-19 with 3:08 left in the first half.

The Pirates would chip away at the lead, trailing only 41-29 in the Red Storm’s largest halftime advantage in a Big East game this season as part of a 16-2 run that bookended, including 6-0 to start the second half, that would cut the Red Storm lead to 41-35. The Hall would eventually tie the game at 45 with 8 and a half minutes left and take its first lead on a goaltending call on a transition layup from Al-Amir Dawes moments later before closing out the 68-62 victory.

Joel Soriano, the embattled all-conference center benched by Head Coach Rick Pitino for the start of the Red Storm’s previous matchup, paced all scorers in the first half with 11 points to go along with four rebounds, a block and a steal. Seton Hall had 9 first half turnovers to only 10 made field goals and gave up 14 fast break points.

A drive by former Johnnie Dylan Addae-Wusu drew an old-fashioned three-point play against his former teammate in Soriano that would push the Pirates to a 50-46 lead with 7:30 remaining. After coughing up a 19-point lead, St. John’s would tie the game at 50 on a transition jumper from Daniss Jenkins in a shot that would fire the home crowd up.

The Johnnies would retake the lead again before Seton Hall closed out the road victory, much of it on the strength of the Pirates getting to the line as they shot 24 more free throws than St. John’s, converting on 24-37 compared to 10-13 for the Red Storm.

Dawes led the way for the Pirates with 19 points, including converting all six of his free throw attempts, while Richmond registered a double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Jenkins poured in 17 points as of one of two double-digit scorers for the Johnnies, while Soriano would muster only 2 points in the second half against a locked in Pirates defense while collecting a double-double with 12 rebounds.

It wasn’t pretty, as the Hall shot only 37% from the floor and 20% from three but was able to out rebound the Red Storm 44-42. The Pirates also turned the ball over only twice in the second half while forcing 15 total St. John’s turnovers.

The win burnishes a Hall resume with its fifth Quad 1 and road victories of the season and brings the Pirates to an even 7-7 mark in combined Quad 1 and 2 games heading into the final five games of the regular season.

The victory also moves Seton Hall (17-9, 10-5) back into a tie for third place in the Big East standings with Creighton, which defeated bubble counterpart Butler in Indianapolis the day before.

The Pirates return to action after nearly a week off this Saturday night against the Bulldogs at 8:30 p.m. in the return match at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. Seton Hall defeated Butler 78-72 on Jan. 13 on the road.

When they were down twenty, I thought it was over. However, that stifling defense and great ball movement were things of beauty They all own a piece of that win but especially Kadary and Sha.

Wow. He didn't even last a season. Something happen behind the scenes maybe?

NEW YORK -- Senior guard Kadary Richmond (Brooklyn, N.Y.) has been named to the BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll after averaging 19.0 points, 9.5 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 2.0 steals in a 2-0 week for the Seton Hall men's basketball team.

Richmond's back-to-back double-double performances helped give the Pirates a Quad 2 win against Xavier and a Quad 1 win at St. John's.

Richmond set a career-high with 13 assists to go with 20 points on 9-of-18 shooting from the floor on Wednesday in the win over Xavier at Prudential Center. He only committed one turnover to go with his 13 assists against the Musketeers. Richmond followed that performance up with an 18-point and 11-rebound outing in the Pirates' comeback win on Sunday at St. John's.

Richmond now has six BIG EAST weekly honors this season.

Embarrassing.

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Also, that’s what she said.