John Fanta
College Basketball Broadcaster and Reporter
St. John’s men’s basketball team will set aim on the program’s first outright Big East regular-season championship since 1985 when the Red Storm battle Seton Hall on Saturday at Madison Square Garden. It will mark the third consecutive weekend that The World’s Most Famous Arena will be at capacity. For the last quarter-century, it’s been a variety of UConn, Villanova, Duke or Syracuse fans that have been filling up more than half of MSG for college basketball games.
But this time is different.
There’s a roar at 33rd and 8th in Manhattan that has been driven by a kid from 26th Street – a Hall of Fame head coach who has won anywhere, and everywhere he’s gone in college basketball. As a result, this time, those roars are coming from a sea of red.
At the age of 72, what Rick Pitino is doing for St. John’s University could be argued as his finest act yet, taking a school that’s been lost in the Stone Age and getting them to not just talk, but execute and win like they say they want to. As a result, the Red Storm have become the top story in New York sports at this moment, and, as the calander gets set to turn to March, they’re among the most compelling storylines in college basketball.
But St. John’s success in Year 2 under Pitino shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise. In his second season at Boston University, 45 years ago, Pitino led the Terriers to a first-place finish in the ECAC North and an NIT berth. In his second year at Providence College, he took on a modern approach at the time by embracing 3-point shooting as Billy “The Kid” Donovan charged the Friars to the Final Four. In Year 2 at Kentucky, back in 1991, Pitino won 22 games and led the program to an SEC regular-season crown. Year 2 at Louisville? From 19 wins to 25 victories. And at Iona, he more than doubled the program’s win total from 12 to 25.
Everywhere Pitino has been, he wins. He wills it out of his players.
“It’s not about when, or if, it’s going to happen for St. John’s, and it’s going to happen in a big way,” Pitino said at his introductory press conference. “Raise this roof up because this place is going to be back, I guarantee that.”
When Pitino delivered that message in the lobby of Madison Square Garden, it wasn’t your classic coach-speak on Day 1 of the job. He went on to lay out a detailed plan of how he planned to turn the program around in an unapologetic manner. He stated that the majority of St. John’s roster at the time wouldn’t be a match with him and his staff and would likely be gone.
“Any program can be built, but you have to change the culture, you have to change the players, because, obviously, you’re losing for a reason, but any place can be built,” Pitino said regarding name, image and likeness (NIL) in college basketball. “The NIL is the reason. If you have these collectives, then you go out there, and you get yourself free agents.”
That’s what separates Pitino from many of the other great coaches who have left their positions in recent years because they’re concerned about their message falling on deaf ears when money is the dominant driver of a program’s success.
Pitino doesn’t shy away from the NIL landscape of college basketball, and as a result, his players are happy, and he’s driving them to the next level.
This is what has made it a perfect storm for a school that has been stuck in the dark of the college basketball world for so long. St. John’s has one of the longest droughts among all high-major programs with a 25-year span in which the school has not won an NCAA Tournament game.
The initial light that signaled those dark days would come to an end for St. John’s came in November 2020, when the University announced the unanimous election of Fr. Brian Shanley as president. Serving as president of Providence College from 2005 to 2020, Shanley resurrected the Friars program when he called former Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese in 2011 and was told to take a good hard look at Providence native Ed Cooley. The rest is history, with a tremendous era of Friar hoops ensuing and the program reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1997 when they advanced to the second weekend in 2022.
Shanley values athletics. So, when former coach Mike Anderson followed a 17-15 season in 2021-22 with an 18-15 campaign in 2022-23, Shanley had seen enough. He needed somebody to resurrect the program, so he picked up the phone and he called Tranghese.
To truly return to the spotlight, Shanley knew a boom was needed. Pitino had cleared his past issues, having been fired by Louisville amid an FBI investigation into allegations of bribery in college basketball. He was later exonerated and received an initial opportunity to return to the sport at Iona.
“The only person to dig you out of that and give you a great basketball coach and win is Rick,” Tranghese told Shanley when he was pondering who to hire. “We need to just talk about Rick and forget about everybody else.”
Shanley was desperate for a winner, and he got just that when St. John’s announced the hiring of Pitino in March 2023.
Fast-forward to current day, and the St. John’s men’s basketball program is a daily talking point on WFAN, a lead headline on any national college basketball show, and so big that they moved Saturday’s game against Seton Hall to Madison Square Garden just two weeks ago due to overwhelming demand. They’re not going to just break even, but a sellout is expected – for a game that just became available on the market.
Pitino’s team plays like a New York basketball team is expected to: suffocating their opponents defensively and outmuscling anybody who steps in their way. Is it a glamorous offense? No, but it is evolving, as we saw this past Sunday in a commanding win over UConn in which the Johnnies buried eight triples.
UConn Huskies vs. No. 10 St. John’s Red Storm
Brooklyn native Kadary Richmond is playing like one of the best guards in the country, RJ Luis Jr. is a front-runner for the league’s player of the year, big man Zuby Ejiofor is as improved as any player in America, Deivon Smith brings a significant burst to the team and the complementary pieces have gotten steadily better.
But in this day and age of college basketball, you need a big-time backer to bankroll the team. Add in key player Mike Repole, a billionaire who founded BODYARMOR SuperDrink, and you’ve got a lead horse in the race to spend on players while others have followed in the movement.
Yes, it’s a movement. This past September, Shanley hired Ed Kull, who worked for Repole at Glacuea and spent six years at St. John’s as vice president of athletics, as the school’s new athletic director. Kull’s goal: to raise the most money as possible.
If that’s not the goal of an athletic director in this current climate, it needs to be.
A Hall of Fame coach who could win on Mars. A president who gets it. An AD who understands the place and is a proven fundraiser, and a fan base that is so rabid for a winner.
This is a perfect storm in just about every way, and one that has New York City dreaming of what’s possible in March. And with Lou Carnesecca, who passed away in November, looking down on his home, the answer to the question feels pretty point-blank right now:
Anything is possible.
John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him at @John_Fanta.
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