Rick Pitino, St. John's players excited about facing Michigan at Madison Square Garden
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino gestures during a game against Stony Brook at Carnesecca Arena on Tuesday. Credit: Errol Anderson
St. John’s and Rick Pitino will be on basketball’s biggest stage Monday night.
The Red Storm and the Hall of Fame coach will debut together for the first time at Madison Square Garden to face Michigan at 6:30 p.m. in the Gavitt Tipoff Games
Pitino has had an intimate relationship with the Garden for years. He coached the Knicks from 1987 to 1989 and was an assistant coach with the club before that, and he won three Big East championships with Louisville. But it goes back even further.
On Friday, he recalled going there as a St. Dominic senior to see Marquette in the NIT and said, “I actually signed my scholarship papers [to UMass] on the floor of Madison Square Garden.”
For most of the St. John’s players — excepting Red Storm returners Joel Soriano and Drissa Traore — it’s going to be an eye-opening experience. It also may be the biggest crowd any of them has played in front of.
“I can only imagine that it’s going to be electric, in one word,” Jordan Dingle said. “I can see that there’s a lot of excitement building up about us playing there and just behind this entire season. So I think that is really going to come to a head on that stage.”
Dingle, who grew up in Valley Stream, said he’s seen only a college game at the Garden and not a Knicks game.
Daniss Jenkins has been eager to play at MSG since he toured it before committing to transfer from Iona and join his former coach. He recalled looking at all the photos of legendary events that adorn the walls.
“You do something special in that arena and you get to hang] there forever,” he said. “Say we play there on Monday and do something special that’s never been done . . . hopefully we would go up in that arena.”
Pitino, however, isn’t about to let the players’ imaginations get the better of them. After last week’s season-opening win over Stony Brook, he said that as well as they played, he had 40 different clips of correctable mistakes to show them, from people being out of position on multiple inbounds plays, to defensive sets, to blocking out on rebounds.
He called Michigan “a killer second game” and added, “We’ve got to play a lot better on the glass and a lot better defensively.”
Michigan (2-0) has a strong frontcourt led by 6-9 Tennessee transfer Olivier Nkamhoua, who is averaging 21.0 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists.
St. John’s (1-0) got strong performances from Soriano, Jenkins and Chris Ledlum against the Seawolves. One significant development was the play of Dingle, the nation’s top returning Division I scorer. He had 13 points and shot 5-for-11 after missing significant practice time and both exhibition games with a shoulder injury.
Pitino wasn’t exactly celebrating it. Asked about Dingle’s play, he pointed out that Dingle and Nahiem Alleyne “didn’t have a steal, didn’t have an assist, didn’t have a rebound.”
“[Jenkins] is not going to get rattled . . . Chris Ledlum is not going to get rattled,” Pitino said. “This is going to be more about Michigan than it is about the Garden. [The Wolverines] are going to be very excited playing in the Garden . . . It’s going to be a great game with a lot of talent on the floor.”
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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.
