St. John's coach Rick Pitino hustles to keep ahead of college basketball curve

Rick Pitino hears the clock ticking. The Hall of Fame coach sees the college basketball landscape shifting. Which is why he’s moving quickly to make St. John’s competitive with the sport’s powers on and off the court.

With a specific emphasis on off the court.

“There’s an expression, ‘Nothing changes if nothing changes,’ and that’s really St. John’s,” Pitino said Friday afternoon during a nearly half-hour livestream interview with CBS Sports college basketball insider Seth Davis on Bleacher Report. “They haven’t made any changes. And here I come in and say, ‘Look, you’ve got to catch up now. We got to play catch-up.’ I’m in a rush and they don’t understand that, why I’m in such a rush.”

While stressing that St. John’s has certain advantages — being a New York City-based program playing home games at Madison Square Garden is a selling point — Pitino pointed out that the school does not have major Division I college football-generated revenue coming in.

So having a wealthy benefactor in Mike Repole, the founder of Vitaminwater and BodyArmor sports drinks, is vital to the program.

“Mike’s probably 50% of our [name, image and likeness revenue],” Pitino said of Repole, who is a St. John’s graduate. “Without Mike, we could not get this done. We have a lot of great, great financial backers at St. John’s, but they [fund] the university more than the NIL. They’re very, very generous. They give their time, they give their money, they go overboard in giving to St. John’s. But Mike Repole has made a strong commitment to helping us with the NIL.”

Programs can be reset with the combination of NIL money and the transfer portal.

To wit: St. John’s used the transfer portal to rebuild itself. The Red Storm brought in Kadary Richmond (Seton Hall), Aaron Scott (North Texas), Deivon Smith (Utah) and Vince Iwuchukwu (USC). They will join returnees Brady Dunlap, RJ Luis, Simeon Wilcher, Zuby Ejiofor and Sadiku Ibine Ayo, as well as freshmen Jaiden Glover, Lefteris Liotopoulos, Khaman Maker and Ruben Prey.

The season opener is Nov. 4 against Fordham at Carnesecca Arena, and Pitino is bullish on the 2024-25 team’s potential.

His players are, too.

“It’s going to be a great thing to watch and a great thing to be a part of,” Richmond said during a team autograph session at Applebee’s in Fresh Meadows on Wednesday night. “[I see] a problem for multiple teams.”

Before that can happen, though, the foundation for how the team will play is being laid.

“They all want to play fast but they don’t know what it is to play fast,” Pitino said. “From a conditioning standpoint, from a fundamental standpoint, we’re trying to teach them to play fast now. That means you can’t throw one-handed passes. You cannot leave your feet to pass. If you’re interior or in the paint, you must throw either a bounce pass or a lob. You can’t throw a chest pass.

“We take the fundamentals of playing fast and understand it starts with being in great shape. And to get in great shape takes some time.”

 With Roger Rubin