Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino earlier this season broke out Hall of Fame levels of drama following a one-point road loss to Creighton by poo-pooing the idea of moral victories and saying he wanted to “jump into the cold and die of frostbite.” The 71-year-old proved Sunday he still has his fastball when it comes to melodrama. He went on another lengthy rant after St. John’s fell at home to Seton Hall and called his first season with the Johnnies “the most unenjoyable experience of my lifetime.”
“We are so unathletic that we can’t guard anybody without fouling,” said Pitino. “For me, I’ve always enjoyed the first year, and I’m not gonna lie to you: This is the most unenjoyable experience of my lifetime. This has been so disappointing.”
St. John’s fell at home 68-62 to Seton Hall on Sunday less than one month removed from an ugly 80-65 loss on the road to the same Seton Hall team (although that one came with Pitino sidelined due to COVID). The loss was its eighth in its last 10 outings and a missed opportunity to get a big win to establish momentum for a late NCAA Tournament push.
March Madness isn’t completely out of the picture with one month of games still to be played before Selection Sunday, but Pitino took a blowtorch to his team publicly after the game as if he’d never see his players again. Not only did he call the team he recruited unathletic, he went a step further by naming names.
“Look: Joel’s slow laterally, he’s not fast on the court,” said Pitino of Joel Soriano, the team’s leading scorer. He wasn’t done. “Chris Ledlum is slow laterally, Sean Conway’s slow laterally. Brady’s physically weak, Drissa is slow laterally.”
Tell us how you really feel!
At least he didn’t go out and name other players he preferred to land or keep to the ones he wound up successfully recruiting. [taps index finger to eat] Oh, I’m actually getting word that Pitino did in fact also do that.
“I tried to get AJ Storr, I tried to get others,” Pitino continued. “There were circumstances that had to be done over, that were out of my control. We had to bite the bullet and clean certain things out, academically as well as athletically. It’s what had to be done to start over.”
The bad news for Pitino is that St. John’s still has five regular season games left with the team he just publicly disparaged in addition to the Big East Tournament. The good news for Pitino is that it’s hard to imagine this team after that type of rant signs up for another season playing for him.
Overhauling the entire roster again in the offseason after hastily putting this one together last year out of necessity seems imminent at this point. Pitino seems to be confident he can fix things at St. John’s eventually, but he also seems confident that he cannot do so with the roster he constructed for this season.
