Rick Pitino wants St. John's to get up to speed and improve on three-point shooting
St. John's Deivon Smith drives toward the net against Creighton on Dec. 31, 2024. Credit: St. John's University
Rick Pitino sees a need — a need for speed.
The St. John’s coach believes that an improved pace — not only running the floor but also moving the ball in the half court — could cure most of the issues that have prevented the Red Storm from reaching their potential.
St. John’s needs to shoot more three-pointers and make them at a higher clip. It needs to get more all-around production from Kadary Richmond. It needs Aaron Scott to shoot better than 0-for-8 from outside the arc. Pitino thinks picking up the pace could address all of these issues.
St. John’s will be looking to play with better pace when it hosts Butler in a Big East game Saturday at Carnesecca Arena. The Bulldogs (7-7, 0-3) have lost six straight.
The Red Storm (11-3, 2-1) managed only 56 points in Tuesday’s one-point loss to Creighton, a team that plays a defense very similar to Butler’s.
“Teams are trying to slow us down,” Pitino said. “That’s their objective. They’re playing very good defense. And if you don’t open it up with three-point shooting, it’s going to be a little bit of a grind.”
That was the case in the loss Tuesday. St. John’s took only nine three-point shots and spent too much time driving to the basket, where three-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year Ryan Kalkbrenner was lurking.
“Our pace throughout the entire game was pretty much as bad as it gets, and that’s something that we worked on in practice yesterday,” Zuby Ejiofor said. “Just moving the ball a lot quicker than we’ve been doing.”
“We weren’t in our spots,” Deivon Smith said. “We weren’t moving with pace and guys weren’t able to get those open shots because we were running so slow on offense.”
Pitino sees something psychological in the mix as well.
“What’s bothering me a little bit is that guys are counting their misses, counting their percentage and not taking them when they can make them,” Pitino said of three-point shooting. “RJ [Luis Jr.] is passing up a lot of open threes. He didn’t do that last year . . . Aaron hasn’t had very many good looks. [Simeon Wilcher]’s got to move more to get open threes.”
Pitino has suggested that Richmond hasn’t been an explosive player because he is adjusting to the speed St. John’s plays at — compared with the deliberate system he was in at Seton Hall — but when asked if slowing the pace might give Richmond more success, he replied, “It should be the opposite.”
“He’s not a shooter, so if you get him in the open court and . . . your passing is better, he can get to the rim. It should be the faster the game, the better he should be.”
Pitino also said he watched video of Richmond at Seton Hall and thinks he’s put on some weight, which is impacting his play.
“He’s not as quick as he was then and I talked to him last night about it and, studying, you could see it,” Pitino said. “I think RJ needs to take five to six pounds off. He was much quicker last year.
“I think that this team will be a decent three-point shooting team,” Pitino said. “Aaron can make threes. We need RJ to shoot them. We need [Wilcher] to shoot them. Deivon is not afraid to shoot them. I wish the other guys had the confidence that Deivon has.”
The Butler game begins a fairly soft stretch in the Red Storm’s schedule, an opportunity to start accumulating wins. Smith made it sound as if the team’s development is timed right for it.
“We’ve got a lot of talent. We have older guys. We have guys that want to win,” he said. “I think now it’s time to put it all together . . . so we could be where we want to be at the end of the season.”
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.
