St. John's Kadary Richmond benefited from temporary loss of Deivon Smith, and it ultimately made the team better, too
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino, left, talks with Kadary Richmond during the first half of an NCAA men's basketball game against Marquette on Tuesday at Mdison Square Garden. Credit: AP/Seth Wenig
STORRS, Conn.
As the minutes grew shorter and the contest more intense on Tuesday night, Deivon Smith finally seemed to be rounding back into form. After suffering a right shoulder injury that required two cortisone injections and forced him to miss three games and play hampered in a couple of others, the St. John’s point guard looked more and more the way he had before the Jan. 11 collision with Villanova’s Wooga Poplar.
He made all three of his shots in the final five minutes and showed no fear of contact as the 12th-ranked Red Storm took down No. 11 Marquette, 70-64, at the Garden.
Getting back the vintage Smith is nothing but good news for St. John’s. The Red Storm were looking at another major hill to climb at No. 19 Connecticut on Friday night and face another road game against Villanova on Wednesday.
What might be even more interesting is the way the Red Storm were transformed while Smith was either absent or not at full strength.
He had been doing more than half the ballhandling, often pushing the pace or starting a fast break with a defensive rebound — coach Rick Pitino has said he’s been the team’s best defensive rebounder — but without him available, it put the ball in Kadary Richmond’s hands significantly more often.
That’s how Richmond thrived for three seasons at Seton Hall before becoming the highest-profile mover in the NCAA transfer portal last season. The 6-6 guard has become the difference-maker St. John’s imagined.
During the first 17 games of the season, including the win over Villanova in which Smith got hurt, Richmond averaged 10.8 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.5 assists and shot 46%. In the six games since then — three in which Smith was on the court again — Richmond averaged 16.0 points, 6.5 rebounds and 6.0 assists and shot 60%.
By no means are we suggesting direct cause and effect. Richmond already was beginning to adapt to the fast pace Pitino has wanted to play and his level of fitness was much improved. But we are suggesting the Red Storm learned a slightly different way to win games, and they did it without dropping a single contest.
They added a tool to their toolbox. And now they add a healthy Smith to it.
“Over the last few minutes of the [Marquette] game, I kind of like felt like myself,” Smith said Thursday on a Zoom conference before practice. “It was just getting out there with the guys playing with that group, getting comfortable again with them.
“They’ve done an excellent job while I’ve been out, and just they’ve built like that,” he added. “They’re playing at their own pace, and this is kind of fun to see like [from] the bench, because they handled a lot of situations well when a lot of people doubted.”
Smith came off the bench in last Saturday’s win over Providence as well as the Marquette game and adapted to the pace the Red Storm were playing — still fast by most measures — and then adding on.
Asked about the recent changes he’s seen in Richmond, Smith said, “He’s been playing a lot faster, but he has a good change of speed.”
In the win over Marquette, the program’s biggest regular-season game in more than a quarter-century, Richmond had 18 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists in 37 minutes.
“Kadary has been very well-coached at Seton Hall, as we know, but he’s taken his game [up] from a conditioning standpoint, from an offensive standpoint,” Pitino said. “He plays now full court and hard the entire night.”
“His jump shot is improving. His mid-range game is crazy right now,” Smith said. “I just think he’s super-comfortable. He knows nobody could guard him . . . I think all five guys on the court really have that mentality and kind of feed off each other.”
Connecticut coach Dan Hurley said containing Richmond has grown into a major concern the past couple of weeks.
“He absolutely is dominant, and these last couple performances?” Hurley said. “You know, he’s always had great physical ability, and now he’s got tremendous experience and now he’s on the best team he’s been on.”
This truly is the best team Richmond has been on, and with him at his peak and the return of Smith, it might be getting even better.
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.
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