The Rick Pitino era for the St John’s Red Storm began with a 90-74 win over Stony Brook at Carnesecca Arena in Queens, New York last week led by senior Joel Soriano, who scored 22 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, and added three blocks.
Pitino, who coached the New York Knicks in the late 1980s, made his Madison Square Garden debut as St John’s men’s basketball head coach Monday night against the Michigan Wolverines. The Red Storm battled for most of the first half but had their final lead of the game after a made free throw by graduate student guard Chris Ledlum that made it 31-29 with 6:28 left in the first half. Michigan closed the first half on a 19-7 run and never looked back and defeated St John’s 89-73.
Senior guard Nimari Burnett sparked Michigan with 21 first-half points. Sophomore guard Dug McDaniel led Michigan with 26 points, 7 assists, and 6 rebounds. St John’s was led by Soriano with 15 points and 9 rebounds, while graduate student guard Daniss Jenkins and senior guard Jordan Dingle both added 10 points.
“We knew Michigan was a great team,” Pitino said after the loss. “It’s very difficult to judge how good teams are this time of year because of the portal and all the transfers. It’s a guessing game. But when we saw them beat Marquette 106-101 in 12-minute quarters and then watched them in their two games, we knew that they were one of the best-shooting teams in the country. What we didn’t expect was to get dominated by their point guard [Dug McDaniel] the way he dominated us tonight. And that’s a credit to him. He’s a terrific little player and just dominated us and made the difference.”
RELATED: Rick Pitino and St John’s hope for a resurgence in the talented Big East
Pitino looked ahead at the upcoming schedule, which includes three games in the Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday.
“We’re going to Charleston to play in a very difficult tournament,” Pitino said. “If we play, like we did with Stony Brook, with sharing the basketball and moving and cutting, we’ll do well. If we play like we did tonight, we’ll struggle. So it was a good lesson. But they deserve all the credit. They were brilliant at the way they ran their offense. I think that when you look at it, we did a good job of putting this team together. Where we didn’t do a good job, I mean, it’s nobody’s fault because we just couldn’t get it done. Our frontcourt depth is terrible. It’s not enough. You need to have five or six frontcourt guys and we have too much depth in the backcourt and not enough depth in the frontcourt.”
With a new head coach, a new system, and 12 new players, the Red Storm should improve as the season continues with a legendary coach at the helm. But it was a shaky start in the second game of the season. We will learn more about the team in Charleston, in which they open the tournament against North Texas tonight.