Rick Pitino’s return to Madison Square Garden as coach of St. John’s was highly anticipated. Unfortunately for the Red Storm and their fans, Michigan spoiled Pitino’s celebrated home debut with a decisive 89–73 victory on Monday night.
The Wolverines’ backcourt of point guard Dug McDaniel and transfer Nimari Burnett combined for 47 points. St. John’s had no answer on defense, which Pitino expressed surprise about after the game.
“What we didn’t expect was to get dominated by their point guard the way he dominated us tonight,” said Pitino, per Fox Sports’ John Fanta.
“Their backcourt dominated our backcourt,” Pitino added. “They played intelligent basketball and we did not. They’re going to have a great season. There’s not too many teams better than Michigan in the Big Ten.”
“Their backcourt dominated our backcourt. They played intelligent basketball and we did not. They’re going to have a great season. There’s not too many teams better than Michigan in the Big Ten.” - Rick Pitino pic.twitter.com/gim3kjMg3P
— John Fanta (@John_Fanta) November 14, 2023
Pitino rationalized his team looking out of sync by adding so many players through the transfer portal. But several fans pointed out that Pitino is the coach who constructed his roster with the transfer portal.
Rick Pitino: “this is going to happen when you take guys in the portal”
— Big East Bar Room 🎙 (@BigEastBarroom) November 14, 2023
My question would be: why did you build a team ONLY through the portal then?
Holy crap can he take ANY responsibility?
— uconnfan (@uconnfan12) November 14, 2023
Rick Pitino has said it’s gonna take time for 14 new players to figure it out. I think as fans we want to eliminate the learning curve and attribute everything to the HOF coach making up for it. Unfortunately he’s right, it’ll take time and we saw that tonight #sjubb
— Dave (@Davee_8) November 14, 2023
Johnny fans and swallowed a pill called Pitino’s Portalball…not gonna work in the Big East.
— Hurley’s Bloody Knuckles (@simbasinner) November 14, 2023
Rick Pitino:
— John Fanta (@John_Fanta) November 14, 2023
“We did a good job putting this team together but our frontcourt depth is terrible.”
Joel Soriano led St. John’s (1–1) with 15 points but as Pitino harshly assessed, the center didn’t have much help in the frontcourt. Guards Daniss Jenkins, who followed Pitino from Iona, and Jordan Dingle, a transfer from Penn, each added 10 points.
As some fans pointed out, Pitino was hired by St. John’s in March which didn’t leave him much choice but to piece together his roster through the transfer portal.
The coach brought in some notable players, including Chris Ledlum from Tennessee, Zuby Ejiofor from Kansas, and Simeon Wilcher from North Carolina to assemble what will likely be a formidable team later in the season. Yet for now, as demonstrated against Michigan, those pieces still need to mesh together.
