The last time Rick Pitino opposed his son Richard, the elder Pitino earned his 900th on-court win as St. John’s beat Xavier on Jan. 24.
Sixteen days later, Rick Pitino will be seeking another milestone at his son’s expense — as well as another opportunity to prove St. John’s is back not only as a title contender in the Big East but as a candidate to play deep into March.
St. John’s will look to continue surging Monday night, when the No. 22 Red Storm hosts Xavier at Madison Square Garden.
St. John’s earned its ninth straight win Friday night, when the host Red Storm snapped No. 3 UConn’s 18-game winning streak with an 81-72 victory.
Xavier hasn’t played since last Tuesday, when the visiting Musketeers fell to UConn, 92-60.
St John’s win Friday was the 903rd on-court win for Pitino, which ties him for third all-time in Division I with former Kansas and North Carolina coach Roy Williams. The NCAA recognizes him with 780 wins after Pitino was stripped of 123 victories due to violations at Louisville.
Mike Krzyzewski (1,202 wins) and Jim Boeheim (1,116 wins) are the only coaches with more on-court victories than Pitino and Williams.
Few of Pitino’s regular-season wins have been as energetic as Friday’s victory, when St. John’s (18-5 overall, 11-1 Big East) led by as many as 11 in the second half before holding off a UConn rally. The Huskies got within one or two points on four occasions, but the Red Storm scored on the subsequent possession every time.
Dylan Darling’s 3-pointer with 3:13 left extended the Red Storm’s lead to 72-67 and sparked a game-ending 12-5 run in front of a frenzied sellout crowd of 19,812 at Madison Square Garden.
“I use the expression ‘no fear of failure.’ I said it every single time out,” Rick Pitino said. “I said, whether we go up 12, they cut it to two — we have no fear.
“Every single player was honed in. They did a fabulous job of doing things down the stretch to help you win.”
The victory was the first for St. John’s over an opponent ranked in the top five since a 70-59 win over no. 3 Villanova on Feb. 3, 2021. The Red Storm pulled within a half-game of UConn (22-2, 12-1) with a rematch looming in Hartford on Feb. 25.
St. John’s dethroned UConn as the Big East regular season and tournament champion last year, when the Red Storm’s bid to appear in the Sweet 16 for the first time this century ended with a second-round loss to Arkansas.
“It was a meaningful game,” said St. John’s forward Zuby Ejiofor, who led the Red Storm with 21 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists, and three blocks on Friday night. “We knew exactly what we were playing for.”
Richard Pitino is looking further ahead than his dad as he rebuilds during his first year at Xavier (12-11 overall, 4-8), which is in a three-way tie for seventh place with Butler and DePaul.
Last year, the Musketeers made the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years under Sean Miller but lost all but two players off the roster after Miller departed for Texas.
The loss to UConn marked the fourth time Xavier has lost a Big East game by at least 20 points. The Musketeers are also 2-4 in games decided by six points or fewer — including the 88-83 loss to St. John’s in which the Red Storm overcame a 16-point second-half deficit.
Three of Xavier’s four leading scorers — Tre Carroll, Roddie Anderson III, and Malik Messina-Moore — are seniors, though starters Jovan Milicevic and All Wright are both sophomores.
“In year one, when you’re starting from scratch, you want to win every game, but you don’t get consumed with that part of it — especially when you’re playing a UConn,” Richard Pitino said last Tuesday. “This is years and years in the making for UConn to build this type of program. I’m very, very confident we can get there.”
–Field Level Media
