CHICAGO — Every few days, Rick Pitino seeks out Chris Ledlum.
He wants to know how his starting power forward is feeling. His right ankle has bothered him most of the year.
The senior forward always has the same response: “I’m good, I’m good, I’m good.”
“Then, I see him in the trainer’s room, jumping in every pool, icing himself down,” Pitino said. “He’s a tough son of a gun. He’s playing terrific.”
Ledlum has been an unsung star of late for surging St. John’s. In the three-game winning streak the Johnnies brought into Tuesday night’s game with DePaul, he’s averaging 9.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.0 blocks. More than the numbers, the 6-foot-6 Brooklyn native has done the little things: made the extra pass, been strong on the glass, defended better than he has all year. And he’s done so despite his ankle being a nagging issue since he missed a game against Hofstra on Dec. 30.
“He’s been hurt the whole year,” Pitino said. “And I’ll say this: 95 percent of people would not play with how banged up he’s been.
“ ‘Led’ has gotten a lot better [defensively]. He’s been fighting through a lot of pain for us, and he’s gotten better.”
Overall, Ledlum’s numbers are down compared to what he did at Harvard, when he posted 18.8 points and 8.5 rebounds last winter as an All-Ivy League first team selection. His role is different. He’s more of a glue guy than a go-to scorer. But Ledlum has accepted that role. Pitino has tried to play him fewer minutes, thinking the heavy workload hurt his production, and it seems to be paying off.
Ledlum is one of several St. John’s players who have never won at the college level before — along with fellow Ivy League transfer Jordan Dingle (Penn), center Joel Soriano and wing Glenn Taylor Jr., among others. For all of them, they chose to come to Queens hoping to finally reach the NCAA Tournament.
It seemed unlikely for a while this winter, as the Johnnies dropped eight of 10 games to play themselves off the bubble. But after upsetting No. 10 Creighton and hammering Butler on the road, St. John’s is very much back in the mix. Most bracketologists now have them in.
“We played Connecticut at Connecticut to the wire, we got a tough call on the play at the end of the game [at Creighton] when Jordan got fouled. We played Marquette to the wire,” Pitino said. “We’ve played great basketball all year. You’re supposed to really get better at the end of February, leading into March.
“These guys, they’re fun to coach. We have a lot of laughs together, a lot of fun together. They’re warriors. … They’re all giving it everything they have. I think we have so much growth left in us, I still think we can get a lot better. All I want to do going into the Big East Tournament is playing our best basketball and let the chips fall where they may.”