NEW YORK — The man sauntered up just as Rick Pitino was finishing a group chat with the assembled media in the bowels of Madison Square Garden. He wore all black — black sweater, black pants and black sunglasses — and a big grin. “Hey, Coach, great job,’’ he said. “You don’t even know who you’re talking to.’’ Pitino smiled that awkward smile you give when you’re supposed to recognize a person but can’t quite place him. The man didn’t make the coach suffer too long. “I’m Walter Berry,’’ he said.
He did not carry a torch, but he might as well have because, in that moment, St. John’s present finally matched its past. Berry represents all that the Red Storm were, and could never quite become again. It was Berry who teamed with Chris Mullin to help the Johnnies to the 1985 Final Four, and it was Berry who brought the St. John’s half of the Garden to its feet and the Syracuse half to its knees when he blocked Pearl Washington’s shot in the Big East tournament championship game the following year to seal the win.
But like the man himself, whose pro career never quite matched his collegiate highlights, St. John’s faded into the background. The team name still meant something, but the team itself not so much. The Johnnies won just one tournament title since Berry’s heyday, and until Thursday afternoon, hadn’t so much as reached the tourney semifinals in 24 years. That nearly defies logic, considering Madison Square Garden doubles as St. John’s home court, but it is a testimony to the program’s abject irrelevance that it could not even win in the city it calls home, and on the court it calls its own.
There’s a million reasons why it all went south — recruits more enamored with leaving New York than staying in it ranks among them. But it’s not complicated. After Lou Carnesecca retired, St. John’s whiffed and whiffed and whiffed on the right head coach.
St. John’s has the right coach. St. John’s beat Seton Hall, 91-72, to reach a semifinal date with UConn and make a very strong case for an NCAA Tournament bid. These things are not a coincidence. “It’s been a long time, a long time coming,’’ Berry told The Athletic after greeting Pitino. “They are doing beautiful right now and I’m so happy to see them back on the map and doing well. It’s so good to see them back among the top. I was glad when they hired Pitino. I knew he’d come to St. John’s and do a great job. He’s living up to expectations for sure.’’
This is MARCH. pic.twitter.com/Jhrl1UGn1g
— St. John’s Men’s Basketball (@StJohnsBBall) March 14, 2024
He is not alone. Pitino’s hiring immediately invigorated the long-dormant fan base, many of whom found their way to the Garden for an afternoon matinee that would rival any Tony winner on Broadway. Pitino back at the Garden, in the conference tournament he’s won three times, playing to a fan base near delirious on the drug of rediscovered success. Pitino stalked the sidelines and barked at officials. He jokingly told his daughter, Jacqueline, to get off her phone and chatted with his old buddy, Vinny Tatum, his Kentucky manager turned longtime sidekick.
All the while periodic chants of “Let’s Go Johnnies,’’ absent amid the anonymity of the team’s averageness, reigned down from the rafters as St. John’s debuted an offensive scheme Pitino settled on only three days ago in order to combat Seton Hall. “Racehorse basketball,’’ he called it, explaining how he wanted his team to get up and down the floor and eliminate a Pirates team that “was better than us from the top of the key to the back of the backboard.’’ The result: 91 points, 62 shots taken, and wholesale hockey line substitutions that kept St. John’s fresh and left the Pirates gassed.
The pivot also masked the weaknesses that Pitino pointed out rather pointedly in a rant that went viral seven games ago. The coach lamented his team’s inability to defend well and move laterally, and those are not exactly things that get solved in a few weeks. So instead St. John’s has leaned into its offense. Since Pitino’s evisceration, the Johnnies are 6-0, and the same team that averaged 69.6 points per game in a three-game skid that invoked Pitino’s ire is now averaging 88.8 in the win streak.
GO DEEPER
Rick Pitino’s latest rant is just another episode in the coach’s long-running show
Not even Pitino is foolish enough to think it will work with similar ease against the Huskies. “Well, they like to play that way, too,’’ he said with a sheepish grin. He also joked that he told his team they’d have dinner in the evening, followed by Connecticut film, more film and “we’re bringing you back at 1 o’clock for Connecticut film again.’’ In classic Pitino fashion, he deflected a press conference question about his team’s NCAA Tournament chances by saying he was only worried about winning the tournament title but then later said, “When we play in the NCAA Tournament, we’ll be a really good team.’’ Should the Johnnies get there, they will be the sixth different team that Pitino has led into the madness.
But such concerns are for another day, and on this day, there was nothing that was going to stop Pitino from enjoying this moment. He exited the court flashing a No. 1 sign to the pep band, and then high-fived the fans who hung over the railings and yelled his name. He bantered with the media and then with Berry. “Hey, Walter,’’ Pitino said when Berry introduced himself. “The legend of St. John’s.’’
Berry shuffled off, leaving Pitino to continue talking. One legend finally finding someone at St. John’s worthy of taking his torch.
(Photo of Rick Pitino: Robert Deutsch / USA Today)
