Rick Pitino takes St. John's losses hard
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino yells to his team as they play against Creighton during the first half of an NCAA basketball game Saturday in Omaha, Neb. Credit: AP/Rebecca S. Gratz
OMAHA, Neb.
If one wants to see the driving force who very likely is going to put St. John’s back in the national consciousness and return it to the upper echelon of college basketball, just take a look at Rick Pitino — especially after a game such as Saturday’s heartbreaking 66-65 loss to 22nd-ranked Creighton before a near-sellout crowd that braved a minus-30 degree wind chill.
Pitino is a Hall of Fame coach for a lot of reasons. None may be bigger than how much he hates to lose. And this was a game that the Red Storm had every chance to win, leading in the final minute before they couldn’t get a defensive rebound on the Bluejays’ last possession and couldn’t make a pair of shots on the last possession of the game.
At the postgame news conference, Pitino said he liked a lot of things St. John’s did, including the defense holding a great-shooting Creighton team to 36.7% from the field and 22.2% on three-pointers and a second unit that turned a deficit into a lead. However, there was no getting away from the outcome.
When asked if he felt good about how his team played, he replied: “When we lose, I [expletive] hate the world, just so you understand that. No, I don’t feel good. I’ve never felt good with a loss. I don’t believe in those valiant efforts on the road. I feel like I want to kill myself, jump in the cold and die of frostbite.”
Laughs aside — he concluded the news conference by saying “I have to go roll in the snow” — there was a window into some of how Pitino operates.
So much could have been laid at the feet of the game officials after the loss, but Pitino mostly described their job as a hard one and complimented them. The closest he came to a disparaging remark was half a sentence: “We haven’t had the best whistle this year, but sometimes when you’re building and you don’t have a rep . . . ”
There was plenty of room for grievance, but he didn’t indulge. Not the 15-5 imbalance of fouls called in the second half that put Creighton on the line for 18 shots to the Red Storm’s four. Not the non-call on Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner when he fell on Daniss Jenkins going for a rebound on the final Bluejays possession, which led to Trey Alexander making the go-ahead free throws with 12.3 seconds left. And not when Francisco Farabello demolished Jordan Dingle on a 12-footer for the win right before the final buzzer, a play in which the guard said, “There was definitely contact.”
Pitino doesn’t work the refs to the extent many coaches do.
“I don’t yell at officials during the game. I’ve always thought — and this is going to sound absolutely berserk — but I think it’s a form of cheating,” Pitino said. “When you’re trying to get calls on every play and cursing at the referees and inciting the crowd, you’re trying to get calls, and I don’t believe in that.
“I’ve said to referees throughout my entire tenure, maybe 1,000 times, ‘Stop listening to the other coach; you’re getting paid to referee, not to listen to coaches,’ ” he added. “Most of them adhere to it. The ones that aren’t great don’t.”
There was more to glean from the loss aside from glimpses into how Pitino operates and the not-so-veiled shot at UConn coach Dan Hurley about riding game officials.
It’s about how hard it is to win Big East road games.
It is said that you have to be 10 points better than the home team to win conference road game by one. Though that may be an exaggeration, the point may land with the Red Storm players after this loss. Only Joel Soriano, Nahiem Alleyne and Drissa Traore know Big East competition, and most of the other players come from lesser conferences.
Asked if getting the last-second foul call against Creighton on its home court is too much to ask, Dingle replied: “I do think so . . . I’m still getting used to the Big East, but I understand why the ref would hesitate to make that call.
In another circumstance, maybe he wouldn’t have.”
Said Pitino: “We’re going to have to fight like this every road game we play. That’s what this league is all about.”
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.
