St. John's Rick Pitino turns up the emphasis on defense ahead of matchup with Fordham

Defense has always been the backbone of Rick Pitino’s teams. He used the defense-first philosophy to build a Hall of Fame career, coach three schools to the Final Four and win two national championship games.

Last weekend, he sounded as if he’d grown impatient with his first St. John’s team after defensive letdowns allowed Boston College to come back from 10 points down to win.

He challenged his players to play better then and did it again Friday before practice as the Red Storm (6-3) readied to meet Fordham (5-5) in a 3:30 p.m. contest Saturday at Madison Square Garden in their final tuneup before Big East play begins Wednesday against Xavier. The game is part of the MSG Holiday Festival.

“The defense is at a point that they need to take ownership and really get better at it,” Pitino said. “This is not the NBA, where you can give up 120 points and still win by scoring 136. So they are taking ownership. They are improving. They are working hard.”

Pitino knows that his defensive system is not easy to learn. He explained that at every stop he’s made, his players didn’t get it right away but eventually caught on. That’s why he enlisted older players through the transfer portal when he took over at St. John’s.

“I knew that it would take time, so I tried to do away with that theory by recruiting six fifth-year seniors, thinking it would alleviate the problem of taking time,” Pitino said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t because four of the six need a lot of time to improve defensively in order for us to mature as a basketball team.”

The two who didn’t clearly are Daniss Jenkins and Nahiem Alleyne, whom he has lauded for their defense.

The adjustment for many of the players has been both mental and physical. As Jordan Dingle pointed out: “The most difficult part for me personally is the intensity that we play with and picking up full court. That’s just something I haven’t had to do since I was like 16.”

Another cornerstone for Pitino is intensively scouting an opponent for tendencies, and he was critical of the Red Storm after late defensive collapses resulted in losses to Dayton and BC.

“We knew we needed to take [BC] out of their offense to beat them and we didn’t do that,” Jenkins said. “The takeaway was we need to focus on scouting more as players .  .  . and take it into the game.“

“I think that the biggest thing was that  we know that we’re better than this,” Dingle said. “The performance that we put on versus Boston College really wasn’t who we are. We had been preparing to guard their stuff all week long .  .  . and we just didn’t do it on that day. So he’s pretty frustrated about that.”

As if Pitino was not putting enough pressure on St. John’s to pick up the beat, the players realize that within a week of taking on Fordham — a squad that like St. John’s owns a one-point win over North Texas — they will play two conference games, one against defending national champion and fifth-ranked Connecticut.

“Coach P has always been saying ‘it’s going to take time to get to where we need to get to as a team,’ ’’ Dingle said, “and that time is approaching.”

MRI for Luis. Pitino said RJ Luis, sidelined with injuries to both shins, was scheduled on Friday to have MRI exams on both. Pitino added that the staff has known about Luis’ shin issues since his transfer from UMass and that he regrets not shutting Luis down entirely to address the malady when he missed two months with a broken hand. “It would have meant a lot for our team to have had him in those games we lost,” Pitino said . . . Cruz Davis is still feeling the effects of the wrist he broke in the preseason and has become a likely candidate for a medical redshirt.

By Roger Rubin

roger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin

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.