Rick Pitino wants to revive St. John’s the way he did the Knicks: ‘Winning is the priority’
NEW YORK -- Rick Pitino and Joanne Minardi have had an apartment in New York City for more than 20 years, but they hardly used it while Rick was coaching in other locations around the U.S. and the globe.
Once the Hall of Fame coach left Iona to sign a six-year deal with St. John’s back in March, the apartment became a home base once again.
“Not until taking the St. John’s job did I stay in that apartment,” Pitino joked Tuesday during St. John’s media day at Carnesecca Arena.
Now that he’s back in the city, he hears calls from New Yorkers on a daily basis for him to restore St. John’s to its glory days under Lou Carnsesecca. Led by Chris Mullin and Walter Berry, the Johnnies were one of three Big East teams to reach the Final Four in 1985.
“I get a chance now to walk around the streets of New York. The comments are awesome, from people driving around in trucks and just yelling, ‘Go Johnnies,’” said Pitino, 71. “I never had that before. Before it was, ‘Go Knicks.’
“There’s an anticipation and an excitement about us. Now we have to prove it.”
The expectations are sky-high for St. John’s, which hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2019. Despite bringing in 12 new players, including 10 transfers, FOX Sports recently placed the Johnnies at No. 20 in its preseason college basketball poll. The Red Storm received votes in the AP Preseason Poll released Monday.
“The brand needs to be brought back,” Pitino said of St. John’s, adding, “Winning is the priority.”
Center Joel Soriano, a Yonkers, N.Y. native and one of just two holdovers from the Mike Anderson era, said of the feels under his new coach: “Coach Pitino, as you know, he has an aura around him. He’s a Hall of Fame coach, so when he announced that he was going to be here, I think it just brought a different type of excitement to New York City.”
He added: “He’s a basketball freak, he eats, sleeps basketball...His attention to detail is amazing, I’ve never seen it from any type of coach.”
Pitino will get the first good look at his team on Saturday when they face Rutgers in a charity exhibition at Carnesecca, with all proceeds going to the Dick Vitale Pediatric Cancer Research Fund at the V Foundation for Cancer Research.
“If we get our doors blown off by Rutgers, then we know we’re going to have a lot of work to do,” Pitino said.
Want to bet on College Basketball?
Pitino had a lot of work to do when he took over the Knicks as a 34-year-old in 1987, too. The year before he arrived, the team had only won 24 games.
Pitino recalled that in the final game of the 1987-88 season, the Knicks visited the Indiana Pacers with a spot in the playoffs on the line.
He said the Knicks’ “brass” was on the trip and told him, “Listen, you’ve done a terrific job turning this around and don’t feel bad if you lose.”
Years later he figured out why they had made the trip: “They wanted to lose that game and that’s why they were on that trip.”
“Why would they want to lose?” Pitino asked rhetorically.” “Parrish, Bird and McHale.”
Led by Patrick Ewing’s 19 points and 10 rebounds and Mark Jackson’s 14 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists, the Knicks beat the Pacers and then faced the Boston Celtics and their “Big 3″ in the first round, only to lose in four games.
In just two years, Pitino led the Knicks to their first division title in nearly 20 years.
When he first took over the Knicks, he said they were “only selling out Madison Square Garden at 50 percent capacity.
“You had to build that back and from that point on until today the Knicks were sold out, so we’re hoping to do the same thing at St. John’s,” he said.
So far, so good.
In terms of ticket sales, St. John’s AD Mike Cragg told NJ Advance Media, “Full Season ticket sales are up over 70 percent over last year’s final numbers and still climbing.”
St. John’s will also have seven nationally televised games -- six on FOX and one on CBS -- during the first year of the Pitino Era, behind only Creighton’s eight and possibly eight by reigning NCAA champion UConn in the Big East.
Pitino is already talking about playing Duke at Arthur Ashe Stadium -- the biggest tennis stadium in the world -- to open next season, as well as playing a home-and-home with Alabama, the nation’s No. 1 team for much of last season.
Still, the proof will be on the court and in one of the toughest leagues in the nation. The Big East has four preseason Top 25 teams, three in the Top 10.
Pitino will learn something about his new team on Saturday against Rutgers.
But if he’s able to restore the program’s glory in this March Madness or beyond, he will have awakened a potential sleeping giant. And he’ll hear even more New Yorkers supporting him as he walks the city’s streets.
“I think it’s long overdue, man,” Soriano said. “I think fans here are waiting for it, they’re eager for it, so I think it’s going to be great.
“It’s hard to explain, that’s just going to be a feeling that’s out of this world.”
