After an accolade-filled regular season, St. John’s prepares for the pressure of March as Big East Tournament action gets underway.
Big East Tournament week teed off with an awards reception Wednesday, at which St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino and RJ Luis received coach and player of the year honors. The league rewarded the Red Storm for their 18-2 record in league play, which tied the win total record set by UConn just a season prior.
An emotional Luis accepted the award as a culmination of the hard work committed by the team from Queens and for his journey, not just returning from surgery in the offseason but as an Ecuadorian and Dominican basketball player in a city that has over 1 million Dominicans living in the metro area. Luis averaged 18.1 points and 7.1 rebounds this season.
Connecticut’s Liam McNeeley earned Big East Freshman of the Year, capping off his acceptance speech by telling the media and attendees that he’ll see them on Saturday, the final day of the conference tournament.
“Good for him,” Luis said when asked about McNeeley’s prediction, “but we’re focused on Thursday.”
It was an intriguing setup between the preseason conference favorite and the eventual Big East champs. Connecticut and head coach Dan Hurley have thrived in previous years with the mentality of “the hunted,” and that carried over in November as they aimed to try and three-peat as national champions. Thursday’s statement seemed like an indication that they were looking to take back what was theirs from the Johnnies.
“Pressure is great and comes with success,” Luis said. “If we didn’t want to have this type of pressure we would have never won the regular season championship. We would have never been No. 6 in the nation. It’s staying humble, and not getting it to your head.”
That mentality will be vital for the Red Storm come Thursday as they face the Butler Bulldogs, one of three teams to advance on Wednesday night.
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Pierre Brooks’ assertion in the paint
The aforementioned Bulldogs put on a display of interior dominance in the opening game of the tournament. Forty of their 75 points against Providence came within the paint, led by senior Pierre Brooks’ 20 points from inside the key.
The 12 attempts from 2-point range tied a career high for Brooks. The performance was the first game played by the wing since getting snubbed for a spot on any of the Big East All-Conference teams. He finished with 25 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals. His makes counted for six of the 11 first half 2-point field goals that the Bulldogs converted. As a team they shot 85% from that part of the floor in the first 20 minutes, solidifying the lead they held practically the rest of the game.
Success came from the Bulldogs puting the Friars in endless ball screens and their high efficiency in the paint opened up extra pass corner threes. Junior Landon Moore made just one 3-pointer in the Big East regular season but splashed two around the corners of the arc on Thursday, benefiting from the spacing provided by the caved in defense.
Butler lost both games against its next opponent, St. John’s, in the regular season by a combined five possessions. Particularly interesting in both of those matchups is that Butler won the rebounding battle against a St. John’s team ranked 25th in the country in overall rebounding rate and 9th in offensive rebounding rate. If the Bulldogs can battle inside and build off of their interior success in the first round, we may be in store for another classic Big East quarterfinal game.
Coaches reflecting on concluded seasons
Thursday’s action saw the season end for three coaches who have been charged with trying to revive storied Big East programs and weather the changing climate of college basketball. In seasons of setbacks, injuries and misinformed talent evaluations, all three coaches had different answers for where the season left them and how they right the course from their first couple of seasons.
Providence’s Kim English began his press conference after the loss to Butler with the explanation that their lone tournament game was “a disappointing effort, disappointing outcome. We played true to the pitiful, embarrassing season we’ve had. That falls on me and the work to correct that begins. And we will.”
The Friars finished 6-14 in league play, their worst record since Ed Cooley’s first season at the helm in 2012, and closed the season on a six-game losing streak. Providence was 6-19 in Quad 1, 2 and 3 opportunities this season.
English said that the issues with personnel were twofold and that it was not just finding the right guys but maintaining a culture that builds the talent that they were bringing in, focusing on “the intel, the information we get… really looking at who they are, watching them at their worst… and cultivating that every day.”
“We haven’t had a rotation all season,” English said. “The player in me, it’s my job to play. It’s my job for my coach to keep me on the court. The coach in me would love to have a set rotation, but winning basketball… there’s certain things [where] you don’t deserve to play… Forget the rotation, you need to sit on the bench.”
English went on to say that he didn’t have any qualms with his players, but that the collective of his staff failed. The coach he replaced, Cooley, also saw his second season at Georgetown end in the first round, losing 71-67 to DePaul.
A season marred by injuries, he opened with a qualifer that there was no excuse due to the lack of available pieces for the Hoyas or for the fact that their three losses to DePaul all came down to similar failures and miscues, noting a consistent lack of discipline.
“I tell my guys all the time, ‘Dumb will get you beat every night,’” Cooley said. “You have to have some emotional intelligence. You have to have some toughness.”
Cooley improved their conference record from 2-18 in year one to 8-12 this season. The Hoyas opened the Big East season with three wins but lost steam with multiple stretches of three losses or more in a row. The Hoyas had just seven rotational players available for their last game.
“Building an organization is a process, I’m never trying to get to anywhere fast.” Cooley said. “I’m really proud of where we’ve come. We’ve had more injuries this year that we’ve gone through as an organization than any of my 19 years as a head coach.”
Georgetown closed out the season with a 2-5 record after star freshman center Thomas Sorber’s injury-related season ended. His absence loomed large as Cooley continued to contemplate whether Georgetown was improving at the rate he wanted or expected, but it made him optimistic for the future.
“When you lose someone who in my opinion…who should have at the minimum been the rookie of the year of this league,” Cooley began to explain. “His impact, for us… the fact that these coaches did not recognize that… I pray that that kid comes back. He will be the Big East Player of the Year. He will be a First Team All-American. He will be a lottery pick. And we will be cutting the nets down in this building next year at this time come Saturday.”
The night concluded with a Villanova drubbing of Seton Hall as the Pirates also begin to try and reassess what comes next after a 2-18 Big East season, the first losing record in league since 2015. Head coach Shaheen Holloway had been vocal throughout the year about the limitations and difficulties he operated under in the NIL era and that conversation appeared again as he reflected on a frustrating year.
“[The Big East] is a big boy league and I think some of the guys that came into the program didn’t understand that it’s a big boy league until we got into it,” Holloway said. “And that’s on me for them to understand stuff like that.”
Holloway made it clear that fundraising was the top priority as the Pirates try to compete in a power conference landscape that’s ruled by NIL incentives for portal players. “You can’t say ‘regardless of resources’… you have to have that. Because if you don’t have that then you can’t be in the game.”
“No matter how good of a coach I think I am,” Holloway said, “if you don’t have those resources it’s a different ball game.”
All three coaches on the losing side made it clear that the difficult seasons made them more motivated to find answers in the offseason, while also being wary that there is no certainty in roster retention or finding the right fit from players looking for new homes in a limited recruiting window.
The uncertainty of how their rebuild process would go was apparent and vocalized throughout their press conferences. But hope shouldn’t be lost, considering that the festivities began with recognition of a program in St. John’s that turned it around thanks to multiple gambles in the transfer portal after an 11-9 season the prior year.