I was expecting positivity. Optimism. The usual coach-speak that comes after a few strong performances.
Rick Pitino, I’m quickly learning, doesn’t abide by that coaching manual. In his nearly 20-minute session with reporters ahead of Friday’s trip to West Virginia, he focused on St. John’s shortcomings. He was critical and blunt, bordering on harsh. He criticized the Johnnies’ defense, their high turnover rate (16.1 percent, tied for 214th in the country) and their guards’ rebounding issues. He singled out a handful of players by name for different reasons.
“I have to have patience because this is a team that, if you look at the metrics, it’s not good,” Pitino said. “The defense and the turnovers are not good.”
It was jarring, considering St. John’s has started to head in the right direction, finishing third in the Charleston Classic after its impressive win over Utah and following that up with a 46-point pasting of Holy Cross. It has gotten healthy. Talented UMass transfer RJ Luis made his debut on Saturday after missing seven weeks with a fractured left hand and high-scoring Penn transfer Jordan Dingle has begun to look like himself after an offseason of injuries. To the untrained eye, it seemed like Luis played well in his debut, scoring 14 points in 16 minutes. Not to Pitino, who harped on several missed defensive assignments by the skilled wing. The overall defense seems to be improving, limiting Holy Cross to 45 points. Pitino still sees a group of players unsure of how to guard.
“From a defensive standpoint, they are way behind what I would have expected of them,” Pitino said. “They know nothing about defense — nothing at all. That’s disappointing to me.”
In a way, this was refreshing. This is a program that has mostly been devoid of accountability and discipline for over two decades now. That hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2000 and last reached the main draw of the tournament in 2015. That has mastered the art of inconsistency, rarely stringing strong games together.
This felt like Pitino sending a message to his team: Don’t get overconfident after two feel-good victories. As associate head coach Steve Masiello told me recently about Pitino: “He really believes good is the enemy of great. You did good, he doesn’t want to hear about it. He wants greatness.”
The critiques aren’t necessarily new to the Johnnies. Pitino, as The Post reported prior to the season, has a group text-message chat with his players in which he often expresses whatever it is he is thinking. This week, he handed out statistics to the team detailing where they stack up in the Big East defensively: Last in 3-point percentage defense and second-to-last in field-goal percentage defense. They are ranked 102nd nationally in defensive efficiency.
“That’s kind of embarrassing for us,” Connecticut transfer Nahiem Alleyne said. “We need to pride ourselves on defense, and I feel like we’ve been doing a good job lately bringing energy, communicating with one another. … I feel like the vision is getting there slowly but surely.”
Perhaps the most important part of all of this is how his players respond to the criticism. You rarely hear such honesty these days, even in the pros. Star center Joel Soriano responded to Pitino not guaranteeing him a starting job by getting into the best shape of his life, down to roughly 8 percent body fat. Alleyne wasn’t playing a lot, and apologized to Pitino for how he had performed rather than lobbying for more minutes. At least so far, the Johnnies understand that the Hall of Fame coach is looking out for them, knowing what it will take for this team to have success. Rarely does a press conference go by without Pitino raving about their character, although it is interspersed with areas of needed growth.
“For us to get ready for the Big East, we’re going to need to improve defensively and we need to value the basketball better, and they know that,” Pitino said. “They are self-inflicted wounds that we must cure, but we are definitely getting better.”
It’s the new St. John’s normal under Pitino. He isn’t going to hold back, not at the age of 71 after a career of maximizing his teams’ potential by constantly pushing them to be better. His way has proven to work. Expectations have risen on the outside, but that’s nowhere near the high standard the coach is setting for his players. Wednesday provided an apt example of how much things have changed in Queens.
Starting power forward Chris Ledlum (illness) may come off the bench on Friday against West Virginia. Pitino said he has missed a few practices this week and will be at less than 100 percent.