Pace rang the alarm for St. John's, but now Rick Pitino rings the opening bell at New York Stock Exchange
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino and members of his basketball team, as well as Madison Square Garden Entertainment executives, rang the Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Credit: NYSE/Allie Joseph
St. John’s took a break from the alarm bells for an opening bell.
Coach Rick Pitino and nine Red Storm players paused their 'ironing out of kinks' from Sunday's exhibition game loss to Division II Pace and were joined by Madison Square Garden executives Tuesday morning at the New York Stock Exchange to ring the opening bell and start the day of trading.
St. John’s continues to be “a buy” since Pitino arrived, and anticipation about this Storm season is building from all corners of the area.
The 12 new players on the St. John’s roster came for the big reasons – to play for the Hall of Fame coach, in the Big East and at Madison Square Garden on the nation’s biggest stage – but there are other benefits to playing in New York.
“When I heard we’d be doing this, it definitely surprised me – I was shocked,” said Jordan Dingle, last season's Ivy League player of the year from UPenn. “We’re really fortunate for all the stuff St. John's has been doing for us as athletes and all the experiences that we're getting outside of basketball.”
“They're not doing this in Lawrence, Kansas, right now,” Pitino said, a potential recruiting pitch taking shape.
Pitino did this once after winning a national title – he couldn’t remember if it was 1996 with Kentucky or 2007 with Louisville – and he is the first St. John’s basketball coach to do it since Lou Carnesecca rang the opening bell in 2008 to mark the centennial of Red Storm basketball.
St. John's players Daniss Jenkins (left) and Jordan Dingle at The New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, October 31, 2023 Credit: NYSE/Allie Joseph
There has been some good news on the injury front since the 63-59 exhibition loss, where five players were sidelined. Joel Soriano (calf), Dingle (shoulder) and Cruz Davis (broken hand) all returned to practice on Monday.
Pitino has said Soriano will be in the starting lineup against Stony Brook on Nov. 7. How much Dingle plays – and whether he cracks the starting lineup – will be determined by how he performs in practices.
“Jordan can shoot and we've been struggling a little bit from the perimeter,” Pitino said, “so he's going to help us in that area. We just have to get healthy.”
Pitino has portrayed the wake of this Pace loss as “a good thing” and a chance to “find out what we have to do.” But behind closed doors, he was less forgiving of the performance.
“He had let some steam off,” said Nahiem Alleyne, who Pitino already has named a starter for next week’s opener. “But ultimately he just said we ‘got a learning experience and it doesn’t count.’ We got the message: we have to be a lot better.”
“We took it as men and we learned our lesson and we need to move on from it,” Dingle said. “We're not dwelling on it, but we understand the things that we need to improve on.”
As far as areas of focus for the Red Storm in the five-to-six practices remaining, Pitino said “the toughest thing has been getting them to know all the sets, getting to know all the defenses and getting them to not only play hard but not overthink. That’s been a big weakness – they’re trying to memorize the plays. [It should] just flow easy and that comes with repetition.”
And of course there is the matter of getting a team assembled for the first time from all corners of the country to play well together.
“It’s going in the right direction, even with the loss,” Alleyne said. “The loss showed we need to become connected . . . When Opening Day comes, I feel like you’ll see a different team.”
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.