Rick Pitino tells his players harsh truths
The The St. John’s Red Storm fell 103-95 to the Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday at Madison Square Garden and head coach Rick Pitino didn’t hold back to the question of what went wrong for his Johnnys.
Pitino said St. John’s fell into the trap of allowing Alabama to control the tempo of the game. He especially pointed out that guards Oziah Sellers and Ian Jackson, who finished with 14 points each, were too impatient on offense.
“Offensively, they were too fast. They wanted to play like Alabama, and that’s the one thing we wanted to stay away from: the quick shot, and we shot a lot and didn’t let them play defense. Then we turned it over on the other end and we couldn’t guard them on the rebound,” Pitino told Roll Tide Wire’s Steve Hawley.
“So our running backs didn’t play particularly well tonight, but that’s because they (Alabama) have great guards.
Pitino didn’t just criticize his backfield. The New York native also made light of his frontcourt’s lack of physicality. Despite losing just one board in the rebounding battle, Pitino claimed his team wasn’t aggressive enough. Alabama guards LaBaron Fillon and Aden Holloway combined for 46 points as the Crimson Tide outrebounded St. John’s 54-40.
“I’m a little concerned that our frontcourt doesn’t like to hit people on shots. We’re trying to outplay them instead of hitting people. We’ve got to learn. We made a lot of fundamental mistakes down the stretch. Even Zubi (Ejiofor) and (Dillon Mitchell), two of our captains, made fundamental mistakes when we brought Pitino in,” Pitti said. “So it’s a new team. They’re getting used to each other. It’s a great game to play. They’re going to teach us a lot.”
St. John’s will have a chance to regroup before hosting William & Mary next Saturday at Carnezek Arena.
2025-11-09 15:44:00
