Even the person who employed Rick Pitino to show St. John’s round didn’t count on it to occur so rapidly.
When Pitino famously assured at his introductory press convention in March of 2023 that St. John’s was “going to be back,” this system had not gained an outright Huge East championship since 1985 or perhaps a share of the convention title since 1992.
It had been greater than 5 years, in the meantime, since Pitino was fired from Louisville amid a federal probe into fraud and corruption in school basketball. Pitino had gone on to educate in Greece for greater than a 12 months and at Iona for 3.
“This is a redemption story,” St. John’s president Rev. Brian J. Shanley stated this month after the Crimson Storm gained their first outright Huge East crown in 4 a long time. “Where else could Rick Pitino do what he’s doing except here at [Madison Square] Garden with St. John’s?”
That redemption story obtained one other chapter Wednesday when Pitino was named Huge East Coach of the 12 months for 2025.
Now in his second season at St. John’s, Pitino led the sixth-ranked Crimson Storm to a 27-4 regular-season report, together with 18-2 in convention play, and to the highest seed on this week’s Huge East Event.
That’s after St. John’s went 20-13 in its first season below Pitino however was unnoticed of the Huge Dance.
“This is an answer to a prayer,” Shanley stated. “This is what I hoped when we hired Rick, that we would get back to where we are right now, contending for a national championship. This is just the beginning.”
St. John’s leads the Huge East in factors (78.6) and rebounds (40.8) per recreation whereas limiting opponents to a conference-best 66.3 factors per recreation.
Pitino did it with a roster that misplaced six of its prime seven scorers from final season.
He dominated the switch portal by bringing within the likes of do-it-all guard Kadary Richmond and the speedy Deivon Smith, who proved to be good enhances to returnees RJ Luis Jr. and Zuby Ejiofor of their breakout seasons.
And now St. John’s is about to return to the NCAA Event for the primary time since 2019. The one query is how extremely it is going to be seeded.
Initially Revealed: March 12, 2025 at 12:08 PM EDT
