St. John's needs a signature win vs. Kentucky and Bryce Hopkins needs to be an 'alpha dog'
St. John's' Bryce Hopkins, left, defends an inbound pass by Bucknell's Jayden Williams during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game on Nov. 20, 2025, at Carnesecca Arena. Credit: AP/Frank Franklin II
ATLANTA — The storylines are plentiful and entertaining enough to make any college basketball fan giddy. But if St. John’s is your team, all the buzz around Rick Pitino taking the 22nd-ranked Red Storm against the Kentucky program he once rebuilt from rubble is like gazing at the Mona Lisa and admiring its frame. The 12:30 p.m. game at State Farm Arena has to be about how the Red Storm perform and only that.
Every time a Pitino team has gone against the Wildcats, there has been intrigue, be it his return to Rupp Arena, coaching against John Calipari or the in-state rivalry between college hoops bluebloods. This year, when UCLA — the sport's most decorated program — had to be replaced in the CBS Sports Classic, St. John’s improved profile made it the choice. And this Red Storm-Wildcats contest has Pitino in a coaching matchup with Mark Pope, who was a captain when Pitino guided Kentucky to the 1996 national championship.
Fantastic as all of that is for an enthusiast, it’s just scenery framing a very consequential game for St. John’s (7-3). No one envisioned that it would be so meaningful when the Red Storm opened the season at No. 5 in the country. But that’s how it ends up, with this amalgamation of talent having dropped each of its three games against other nationally ranked teams and still figuring out how to play high-level winning basketball.
St. John’s has beaten Ole Miss, Iona and DePaul since it went 1-2 with losses to No. 4 Iowa State and No. 21 Auburn at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas to drop to 4-3. During the winning streak, there have been major improvements — the team defense, the performance of Joson Sanon and the understanding that Oziyah Sellers must shoot more — as well as distressing developments, such as Bryce Hopkins becoming passive.
Do the improvements hold up against more formidable foes such as Kentucky? Pitino has counseled Hopkins to be more of an “alpha,” but will it take? This game could answer these important questions.
Kentucky (7-4) is almost a mirror image of the Red Storm. It opened this season No. 9 but has lost all four of its games against other nationally ranked foes and fallen from the Top 25. The Wildcats haven’t been healthy, but 6-11 Jayden Quaintance will return from March knee surgery on Saturday.
“I think we probably have two teams that have really, really high ceilings that haven’t totally found them yet,” Pope told reporters in Lexington on Thursday. “I think you have two teams that, at any given moment, could be incredibly explosive.”
And of course there is the bottom line. This could be a signature non-conference win for St. John’s, one that not only reflects well in the moment but also will pay dividends in the metrics all season as the Wildcats inevitably win big SEC games. It also could drop the Red Storm to 1-4 in valuable Quad 1 games. Despite Pitino’s insistence to the contrary, the Big East appears to offer few opportunities to improve his team's profile, outside of the two regular-season games with No. 5 Connecticut, and many to weaken it.
“[I] feel like guys are competing at a high level and obviously, we know that's what the stakes are,” Zuby Ejiofor said. “It's a game that we want to go out there and win, and they're probably going to have more of a crowd than us. It’ll be good . . . get that feeling of ‘just do whatever it takes to come out with a victory.’ ”
Pitino seems as surprised about Hopkins as anyone. In the Red Storm’s first six games, he averaged 17.9 points, shot 56% and had almost twice as many assists as turnovers. In the last four, he averaged 9.0 points, shot 41% and had twice as many turnovers as assists.
Early on, Pitino was exhorting him to become one of the best players in the country. Now he is begging him to take on the mindset of an “alpha dog.”
“If he wants to become a top 10, top 15, top 20 player in the country, he totally has to do a makeover of his personality because it would make him so much better,” Pitino said Thursday. “If I didn't love him and believe in him, I would have changed from [the starting] lineup . . . but because I love him and I believe in him wholeheartedly, I talked to him. I know he'll bring it in the Kentucky game.”
Pitino has only burnished his reputation as a master rebuilder of programs during the past 2½ seasons at St. John’s, but it was his masterpiece when he left the Knicks' bench to take over Kentucky, the college basketball crown jewel scarred by scandal. The program was barred from the NCAA Tournament and broadcast television, and Pitino recalled going from establishment to establishment telling the owners to stop giving the players perks. Seven years later, the Wildcats were national champions.
That was 30 years ago. The Red Storm need a win right now. This is no time for nostalgia.
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.
