With Rick Pitino at the helm, possibilities for St. John’s seem endless

NEW YORK — A celebration 25 years in the making spilled across the length of Madison Square Garden’s court as RJ Luis Jr. climbed the blue and yellow ladder for the second time. By then, friends and families and St. John’s fans from now and then were reveling in the warp-speed renaissance of a program that used to enjoy these kinds of nights far more often. By then, roughly a half-hour after the Red Storm pulled away from Creighton, 82-66, to win the Big East Tournament title on Saturday night, the buckets of red, white and blue confetti that decorated this joyous fray had long since settled on a floor made sticky by thousands of beer-soaked footprints. By then, Father Richard Rock, the campus minister for athletics, had heeded the call from head coach Rick Pitino to snip the final piece of a net that seems destined for memorialization somewhere in Queens.

As if on cue, “Empire State of Mind,” the popular song-turned-New York City anthem, blared through the building’s sound system, just as it does whenever Pitino arrives on the court for home games. Luis reached the top rung of the ladder and turned to face a sea of cell phone-waving admirers, hoisting himself backward into a seated posture on the rim. There sat the league’s Player of the Year from the regular season and its Most Outstanding Player from the conference tournament — he poured in 29 pounds and grabbed 10 rebounds against the Bluejays — in a regal perch with a flag from the Dominican Republic tied around his neck. He posed for photos with one trophy in each hand and a cheek-splitting, dimple-making grin plastered across his face in what looked like a recruiting pitch on steroids.

Who wouldn’t want to experience something like this in The World’s Most Famous arena, a hallowed venue where the Red Storm finished unbeaten this season while delighting one sold-out crowd after another? Who wouldn’t want to be part of what Pitino, 72, has built in two short seasons at St. John’s, catapulting a dormant program to the absolute pinnacle of the Big East? Who wouldn’t want to see how far this revitalization can go, both in next week’s NCAA Tournament, where Pitino’s team will likely receive a No. 2 seed, and in the years to come?

“It’s just crazy how much you can speak things into existence and just watch it all come together,” Luis said during the postgame news conference. “This has by far been the most emotional, happiest week of my 22 years of existence, so this is great. I mean, I love Coach P. [and] what he does for his players. He looks out for all of us.”

RJ Luis Jr., Zuby Ejiofor recap St. John’s winning the Big East Tournament over Creighton

The allure of being handpicked by Pitino, who has won two national championships and made seven Final Four appearances, is cited by many former players at St. John’s (2023-present) and Iona (2020-23) as the key ingredient to his roster-building elixir amid a landscape that is far different than the one he left behind when Louisville fired him eight years ago. To field a recruiting call from someone squarely in the conversation for the greatest collegiate coach of all time — he became the first person to lead three different programs to the Final Four and remains the only individual to win national titles at multiple schools — imbues recruits with confidence about what their careers can become. If there’s one thing everyone can agree on when it comes to Pitino, who is among the sport’s most divisive figures, it’s his uncanny ability to identify and develop talent, a skill that is more valuable than ever in what amounts to free agency in the transfer portal.

Pitino identified Luis, a former three-star recruit and the No. 232 overall prospect in the 2022 recruiting cycle, as the kind of hyper-athletic, two-way shooting guard whose height and length would allow him to thrive in the Big East — even though Luis only averaged 11.5 points per game as a freshman at UMass, where the level of competition was several notches below the caliber of opponents he now dominates. Pitino believed that center Zuby Ejiofor, who was named the league’s Most Improved Player this season, could blossom into the rugged, glass-crashing force the Red Storm would need when battling the likes of Ryan Kalkbrenner from Creighton and Donovan Clingan from UConn — even though Ejiofor, a former blue-chip prospect, logged just 5.2 minutes per game during an uneventful freshman campaign at Kansas.

“Neither guy was heavily recruited [in the transfer portal],” Pitino said during his postgame news conference. “Neither guy had great seasons where they were. But after working both of them out, I thought they both had great potential as basketball players and could get a lot better. Did I expect them to reach these heights? I didn’t really think about it. But I have great gratitude that they did because we won a regular season and a Big East Championship because of their play. The three of them — [Luis, Ejiofor and Kadary Richmond] — have been unstoppable.”

But the acquisition of Richmond, who scored 12 points and snared 12 rebounds on Saturday night, was representative of something else entirely, a nod to the burgeoning financial backing Pitino has secured since taking over the program. Now a graduate student, Richmond was a first-team All-Big East performer at Seton Hall last season after averaging 15.7 points, 7.0 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game for a team that narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament and wound up winning the NIT. He became the No. 1 overall player in the 247Sports Transfer Portal Rankings and commanded both the recruiting interest and the hefty name, image and likeness (NIL) price tag one would associate with that standing. His eventual commitment to St. John’s headlined a four-player transfer class that finished fourth nationally behind Arkansas, Indiana and Kansas, three programs known for splashing cash at the highest levels.

The school’s decision to hire Pitino on March 20, 2023, less than a week after he’d guided Iona to a halftime lead over eventual national champion UConn in the NCAA Tournament, reinvigorated the fan base and city alike. That includes thousands of run-of-the-mill New Yorkers who have stuffed the nosebleed seats at Madison Square Garden for the chance to be part of Pitino’s awakening, a show of support so ardent that St. John’s plans to play even more home games at the venue next season to reflect the skyrocketing demand for tickets. And it also includes some of the school’s richest and most powerful alums, with billionaire Mike Repole chief among them.

Rick Pitino talks winning Big East Tournament & March Madness expectations for St. John’s

Repole, 56, has become one of the most recognizable donors in college athletics thanks to his ever-strengthening relationship with Pitino and the St. John’s basketball team. He’s donated millions to spearhead his alma mater’s NIL efforts and now sits courtside for nearly every game, including at this week’s Big East Tournament. So appreciative are the Red Storm students of what Repole has contributed — and what they’ll now expect him to contribute moving forward — that they routinely wave a cardboard cutout of his head during games. Pitino recently told The New York Times that Repole “was going to be 50% of our NIL money,” which he and his staff used to help assemble one of the best rosters in the sport, though Pitino downplayed that correlation after the victory over Creighton.  

“You build a team by making sure you understand the whole puzzle of what goes into it,” Pitino said. “People just mischaracterize the NIL and why St. John’s has been built. St. John’s didn’t get built by the NIL. St. John’s got built with the character of the players. And certainly we are excited to have these young men.”

Just as those young men were excited when the final seconds of Saturday’s game melted away and the program’s first Big East Tournament title since 2000 became official. Two of the players hugged film director Spike Lee, a regular on celebrity row, before the buzzer had even sounded. The rest of Pitino’s players flooded to center court and donned championship memorabilia amid a prolonged standing ovation. The night was fast becoming an incredible Garden party that would have left legendary head coach Lou Carnesecca, who passed away earlier this season, feeling immensely proud.

It wasn’t long before Luis positioned himself atop the rim and peered out at the realization of everything Pitino promised to achieve. For now and for the foreseeable future, the possibilities at St. John’s seem endless. 

Michael Cohen covers college football and college basketball for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.

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