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How St. John’s has ridden the Rick Pitino Effect back to college basketball’s center stage

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  • Post last modified:February 5, 2025

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As noon approached on a cold winter Saturday in Midtown Manhattan, the crowd packing Madison Square Garden perked up when Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” began to play in the World’s Most Famous Arena. The star of this college basketball matinee had arrived.

St. John’s coach Rick Pitino, 72 and dapper as ever in a navy blue suit with white pocket square, appeared from the tunnel that led to the floor. The scene played out on the videoboard above the court for all to see as the chorus hit its crescendo.

This is the Pitino Effect.

Midway through Pitino’s second year in charge, St. John’s basketball is an event again. The Red Storm have yet to lose in 2025, having completed their first unbeaten January since Lou Carnesecca and Chris Mullin were the Kings of Queens and Beasts of the Big East. The Johnnies are regularly making back-page headlines of the New York tabloids.

On Saturday, with a Providence team struggling to stay above break-even in town, 19,196 showed up to watch the Red Storm beat the Friars on a pull-up jumper in the waning seconds by Kadary Richmond.

St. John’s (19-3, 10-1) enters the most interesting regular-season week the program has had in at least 25 years — maybe 40 — alone in first place in the Big East, with No. 11 Marquette coming to MSG on Tuesday night and a road game at two-time defending national champion UConn looming on Friday night.

“If anybody didn’t think he was the greatest coach of all time, this (season) at St John’s at 72 and what he’s doing, it just shows you,” Mike Repole, the billionaire businessman and St. John’s alum, told The Athletic. “Everybody’s telling you how tough it is now. And a lot of the older coaches, 55, 60, 65, are getting out, and Rick, he evolved. Wherever he goes, Rick Pitino is a winner.”

St. John’s went all-in on Pitino, giving him another shot at the big time after scandal relegated him to six years outside of high-major college basketball. The return on investment has been everything St. John’s could have hoped for so far.

“We’re watching a living legend on the sideline,” Repole said.

Like many of Pitino’s best squads, this St. John’s team seems to be better than the sum of its parts.

Among the holdovers from last year’s team, RJ Luis Jr. is a reliable scorer and Zuby Ejiofor is one of the best offensive rebounders in the country. Richmond, a Seton Hall transfer who was a first-team all-Big East selection last year, is a versatile 6-foot-6 wing who has been finding his form during the recent surge. The roster’s other marquee transfer, point guard Deivon Smith from Utah, returned to action against Providence after missing four games during the streak with a right shoulder injury.

“One plus one with Coach Pitino equals five,” said former Louisville star Luke Hancock, the most outstanding player of the 2013 Final Four and now an analyst for the ACC Network. “It doesn’t equal two, like with some coaches, and part of that is the belief that he puts into you as a player and as a team.”

It was a move met with some scrutiny and skepticism. Pitino’s career is dotted with both professional and personal scandals.

Only Pitino, though, has won titles at two schools (Kentucky in 1996 and Louisville in 2013). Only he and John Calipari have taken three different schools to Final Fours, including Pitino’s breakthrough with Providence in 1987 at the age of 34.

And 38 years later, Pitino is on the way to becoming the first coach to lead six different schools to the NCAA Tournament, with St. John’s set to snap its five-year drought this season.

For St. John’s, it was not only a risk worth taking, it was a signal that at a transformational time in college sports, when competing at the highest level would require more investment than ever, the school intended to be in the game.

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