St. John's falls to Michigan in Rick Pitino's return to Madison Square Garden
St. John's Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino gestures in the first half of an NCAA men’s basketball game against the Michigan Wolverines at Madison Square Garden on Monday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Madison Square Garden debut of Rick Pitino-led St. John’s opened with tremendous fanfare and closed to terrible reviews.
The Red Storm got the big turnout and there was energy aplenty in the building. The former Knicks coach got a big welcome from a Red Storm fan base invigorated by his arrival and the team was introduced with a pyrotechnic show.
Right after that was when things started to go wrong. Michigan didn’t come to New York to see Pitino’s triumphant return to World’s Most Famous Arena. They came to win a game and did so resoundingly.
The Wolverines pulled away from a close game late in the first half and just kept adding on in the second to hang an 89-73 defeat on St. John’s before 14,188 in the final installment of the Gavitt Tipoff Games.
“I was just really, really taken aback.,” Pitino said. “Our defense was not good, good but I am going to give all the credit to Michigan. Our offense shocked the [heck] out of me. We didn’t share the ball or move the basketball.
“I am so proud of Madison Square Garden and the job they did for us was awesome [and] unfortunately we didn't match their effort of putting it together. I'm so thankful for the fans that came out – they were great. The students were fabulous. We just couldn't match the Garden and we couldn't match the students and we couldn't match the fans. And more important, we couldn't match Michigan.”
The Storm (1-1) shot a miserable 36%, 9-for-27 on three points and had just 11 assists on 27 baskets while making 16 turnovers.
“I told my guys in the locker room: ‘just give them credit – they played like a team that's in January and you played like a team that’s in early November and that was the difference in the game,’” Pitino said.
“They used each other to get great shots, and we went one-on-one way too much,” he added. “Even though we had a bunch of veterans, they played as individuals.”
The defense wasn’t much better, allowing the Wolverines (3-0) to shoot 52% for the game including 42% on three-point attempts. Some of that was about Michigan’s exceptional guard play. Point guard Dug McDaniel had 26 points on 8-for-16 shooting with seven assists and just two turnovers and shooting guard Namari Burnett had 21 points, including 19 in the first half on 8-for-8 shooting.
The Wolverines certainly didn’t look like a team that Big Ten coaches picked to finish 11th in the conference.
“The statement was to come out and make a statement,” Burnett said. “Come out and there and do it for 40 minutes and the defensive end and the offensive end. . . . and we executed the game plan.”
Michigan followed an 11-3 run to close the first half for a 48-38 halftime lead with a 14-3 run during the first part of the second half. It ended with Will Tschetter’s jumper for a 66-46 lead with 11:16 to play. St. John’s never got closer than the final score.
By game’s end, the Michigan fans in the building were chanting “Let’s Go Blue!” and “Free Jim Harbaugh!”
Joel Soriano had 15 points on 6-for-8 shooting and nine rebounds and Daniss Jenkins and Jordan Dingle each scored 10 points, but Soriano was the only Storm player to shoot better than 50%. Chris Ledlum had four points on 1-for-7 shooting.
The Red Storm fly to Charleston, S.C., Tuesday for a Thursday game against North Texas, the first of three games in four days at the eight-team Charleston Classic. Pitino said Tuesday’s film session is going to make an impression because “film doesn’t lie.”
“They will be humiliated with their selfish offense,” he said. “They're not like that, as people, they're not like that as players and they’ll be embarrassed at that.”
Pitino has said that with 12 new players learning each other and his system, St. John’s won’t be at its best until January. Michigan associate head coach Phil Martelli seemed to agree when he said, “Rick Pitino and St. John’s: is there a more perfect match in the whole country?”
LuHi's Edgecombe at game
Long Island Lutheran standout VJ Edgecombe, the 2023 Newsday Long Island Player of the Year, attended the game as part of an official visit with St. John’s. He recently visited Duke and also has been to look at Kentucky, Florida and Baylor.
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.
