St. John's vs. New Mexico is more than just Rick Pitino vs. Richard Pitino
St. John's Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino directs his team during a timeout against Quinnipiac on Nov. 9, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
New Mexico coach Richard Pitino plans on being his father’s adversary on Sunday afternoon. He has no intention of being his successor at St. John’s whenever his father, Hall of Famer Rick Pitino, retires.
Rick Pitino suggested in February — possibly tongue-in-cheek — that he’d like to see Richard replace him when he leaves St. John’s. Richard Pitino dispelled that notion on Friday as his team prepared to travel east for a noon matchup against the 22nd-ranked Red Storm at Madison Square Garden.
“I thought, ‘Oh, there’s my dad saying another insane thing — hopefully nobody’s listening to him,’ ” Richard Pitino said on a Zoom with reporters. “I don’t know. I think he was probably messing around. I don’t know where that came from. That’s never ever been a conversation we’ve had, so I don’t really know where it came from. So my first thought was, why would he say that? And then second was probably, ‘Oh, he’s probably just joking around.’ ”
Sunday’s game is being held to benefit the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which helps first responders and catastrophically injured members of the U.S. Armed Forces. The meeting between St. John’s (3-0) and New Mexico (3-0) will be the fourth time the Pitinos have faced each other. The elder Pitino was at Louisville when he won the first two meetings against his son’s teams from Florida International and Minnesota. Richard and the Lobos got one back against Rick’s Iona team in 2022.
Richard Pitino said that when his father was given the opportunity to move from Iona to St. John’s, he felt it was a great fit because “he’s a New Yorker.”
“It’s a huge city, but he wants to get those people talking about the Johnnies and I think that drives him more than anything,” Richard Pitino added. “Like [with] this game, he was all, ‘Let’s see if we can really fill up Madison Square Garden.’ ”
Rick Pitino has sidestepped questions about how much longer he intends to coach. His son was asked Friday and sounded like a person who can’t envision it ending.
“He’s 72 years old and the way that he lives his life and the way that he coaches, it’s inspiring,” he said. “He’s never complaining. He knows that coaching keeps him young, keeps him busy, and I think that he wants to do that as long as he’s healthy. He is healthy [and] I know he’s really enjoying it and I don’t see him slowing down anytime soon.”
Sunday’s game will be a step up in competition for the Red Storm, who have wins over Fordham, Quinnipiac and Wagner. The Lobos, who were in the NCAA Tournament in March, beat then-No. 22 UCLA last week. The challenges for St. John’s will continue next week in the Bahamas against No. 12 Baylor, No. 11 Tennessee or Virginia, and finally Georgia in a four-day stretch.
The Red Storm’s performance in these next four games will be important when their so-called “body of work” is judged in March for selection or seeding in the NCAA Tournament. Early-season losses to Michigan and Boston College hurt them a year ago, but this is a team returning four rotation members. And Simeon Wilcher sees that as significant because they “know what’s at stake.”
“These next few games for us are very important and set the tone for the rest of the season,” he said. “I expect us to go out and compete and win . . . That’s going to be my expectations with our team throughout the year because I feel like we have the guys to do a lot.”
After St. John’s shrugged off 30 mediocre minutes and played 10 great ones in Wednesday’s win over Wagner, Rick Pitino was asked about Kadary Richmond deferring to others and taking only seven shots in the last two games. He replied, “The better talent he goes against, the better he’s going to play.’’
“I want Kadary to start getting back to himself, taking more shots, because I feel not many people in college could really stay in front of him,” Wilcher said. “I think — even the next game — you’re going to see it totally different.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.