St. John's should play a high-major non-conference game in February
St. John’s head coach Rick Piton trying to the the ship while playing Harvard at Carnesecca Arena at St John’s University Tuesday, 23, 2025. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
St. John’s coach Rick Pitino had a very good plan when he put together his team's non-conference schedule for the 2025-26 season. It didn’t go the way he, his players or the team's fans wanted, but that doesn’t mean it was bad.
St. John’s found itself in a tough spot at the end of last season as a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament facing Arkansas in the second round. The Red Storm hadn’t seen the kind of size and athleticism the Razorbacks boasted and got bounced, 75-66.
Pitino didn’t want the current team — which was going to have a high ceiling — running into something unfamiliar this time around. He got a measure of his team going into the season with a final exhibition game against No. 2 Michigan and then an idea of how much progress it had made against No. 14 Alabama. The Red Storm got tournament experience with three games in three days at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. There also were the December meetings against an Ole Miss program that went to the Sweet 16 last season and Kentucky.
There was nothing to dislike about it — aside from the fact that St. John's lost all four games against teams that either have been or are nationally ranked — but we see one tweak that could be possible for next season and make a world of difference for that team.
St. John’s should play a high-major non-conference game in February.
This season’s story remains unwritten, but we’ve seen Pitino’s first two St. John’s teams grow strong as the season unfolded and play their best basketball in February and March. Wouldn’t a Red Storm team traveling that arc — and he believes the current one is — benefit from a big resume-builder when it’s finally clicking?
There are eight teams — most or all of which will make the NCAA Tournament — that are doing this. None of them is bigger than the Feb. 21 contest between Michigan and No. 6 Duke in Washington, D.C. But No. 16 Louisville, No. 21 Virginia, Baylor, Ohio State and Utah State also will have non-conference action in February.
Asked about the idea of replicating the Duke-Michigan paradigm, Pitino replied, “That game probably is one of a kind — I don't imagine anybody else doing that — [but] I would be in favor of doing that. The problem we have is . . . it's very tough to get dates in the Garden. We love it [and] they're great to us, but it's so difficult to get a date and then you’ve got to match the date [the would-be opponent] has.”
Duke is playing Michigan in Washington, so what about a neutral site? The Red Storm already have played four neutral-site games.
“You know, I would be in favor of something like that,” Pitino said. “I think it's certainly good [conceptually], but if you're in a tough league? I don't think it helps or hurts you if you're in a tough league.”
He may have a point. But is the Big East going to be a powerhouse conference with a bunch of opportunities for resume-building wins, like the Big 12 or Big Ten? It is a far cry from that this season.
More to the point, Pitino and his staff have a knack for getting players in this era of unlimited transfers via the NCAA transfer portal and NIL money. However, the Red Storm have gone through massive roster changes each season. Pitino brought in 10 transfers his first season, four in his second and seven for this season.
The complexity of bringing in a bunch of new players and getting them to play a new system together is something the Hall of Fame coach has mentioned after the losses to Alabama and Kentucky. He recently said, “Next year is going to be the same thing because you're going to have eight new players again.”
Asked specifically about any chance that sophomores Ian Jackson and Joson Sanon might stay with him for a second season, he said, “They want to go pro — I think that's their goal. Certainly, if they didn't go pro, we'd love to have them back.”
OK, so Pitino’s first two teams needed time to adjust to playing together under Pitino’s coaching system and style. Two could be a coincidence. Three would be a pattern. We suspect this is the pattern.
The schedule Pitino put together for this season is excellent, with six high-major foes and five mid-majors. That seems like a pretty good distribution, though Pitino has pointed out that teams get little benefit from a 30-point non-conference win over teams such as Red Storm foes Bucknell and Harvard. They are under contract for three high-major games back in Las Vegas again next season.
Just posing the question: What if St. John’s hadn’t played Ole Miss and instead scheduled a blueblood program for the second month of the coming year?
We know it looks like a good idea, given where this version of the Red Storm stands. It sounds like a logical move, given the way Pitino-coached teams trend.
Pitino deserves a grade of "A’' for his scheduling strategy and execution. Still, as the Red Storm players often say, there’s always room for improvement.
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.
