Rick Pitino and St. John’s improved to 17-3, and 8-1 in Big East, after overtime win Wednesday against Xavier. Pitino has lauded his players’ obsession with winning as motivation behind program’s best start since 1999-2000 season. (Photo by St. John’s Athletics)
NEW YORK — Perhaps the greatest testament to St. John’s resurgence this season has been its second-half surges, a recurring theme throughout the Red Storm’s best start to a season since the turn of the century.
In the past, double-digit deficits at halftime have been a source of consternation among fans of the Johnnies, causing undue stress or the proverbial waiting for the other shoe to drop. This year—this team, for that matter—has disproved the relevance of the margin on the scoreboard through 20 minutes.
How so? By developing a single solitary mindset and not inviting any distractions to that goal into the realm of possibility.
And so, for the second time in just over a week, the Johnnies were unfazed by Xavier’s 16-point advantage briefly after the intermission, much like how Georgetown’s 14-point cushion on January 14 was rendered a moot point. For Ejiofor, who has battled sluggish beginnings to games in his junior season, this year has been a learning experience on that front as the emergence of his heart and work ethic has taken center stage.
“I’m a sore loser,” the big man admitted. “I don’t want to ever lose any games. I feel like it’s been a constant thing all year where I kind of start off slow in the first half, so I gotta kind of figure that out. I think my motor keeps me going, just having a really high motor and a will and desire to win.”
As it turns out, Ejiofor is not the only player in the St. John’s locker room to feel that way. In fact, the consumption of winning has been bred into this team as arguably the defining tenet of the much-discussed improvements from year one to year two under Rick Pitino, who elaborated on that Wednesday.
“We just have a mindset that we’re going into the game and winning,” the hall of fame coach stated. “We don’t think about anything except winning. This team is about defense and having a fear of losing.”
“The most important thing for us is to keep improving and keep winning. We cannot take losses. It’s a non-negotiable thing for us, and that’s the attitude we have. That’s why we come back. I think these guys have a great fear of losing, and that’s a good thing. They have a fear of losing because they want to win badly, and that’s the culture of the second year. Everything we’ve talked about, from the summer, is just about winning.”
And the effect of being driven—possessed, even—by emerging victorious has begun to reveal itself on the coaches tasked with taking down the Johnnies on a given night. Following the Georgetown game, Ed Cooley railed against those not believing in the Red Storm enough to rank it among the Top 25, something that changed this week when St. John’s re-entered the polls at No. 20 and 21 in the Associated Press and coaches’ polls, respectively. Xavier head coach Sean Miller also learned the hard way after coming up short against Pitino for the second time in as many weeks.
“When you play them, their level of intensity, their level of physicality, their spirit, their will to win, is something that whoever beats them, they have to be able to cross over that very, very tall mountain,” Miller said. “It’s a relentless style, and their pressure broke us. I have an amazing respect for St. John’s, their intensity, their ferocity, their relentless nature.”
“They have the great blend of being a full-court pressure team and also a half-court pressure team. They’re not as heavy in the full-court trapping, taking risks, making it frenetic. They’re just wearing you out. They can really wear on you with their style. The other thing that makes them just really unique is Aaron Scott and Zuby, when they switch. I thought their switching late in the game, the pressure, it really took us out of a lot of things that we were able to do earlier in the game.”
Pitino cited his team’s humility while enjoying success that the St. John’s fan base has long clamored for as one of the larger drivers behind the results to date. It is a fine line between balancing pride and ego, but it appears the coach has been able to get his young charges to make the distinction and draw the line in the sand between the two.
“We’re a humble group,” Pitino said. “We don’t have that ego. Ego is what kills every team, it kills every coach, it kills every athlete. We just recruited people that want to win, so we’ve done a great job in recruiting. One of the big keys is humility. If you have humility, you’re gonna get better. If you have an ego, you’re gonna get delusional.”
“We’ve got it rolling right now, and winning does that. Look, this is New York. It’s all about winning in New York. If you win, they’ll show up, and we know that. It’s a shame Lou (Carnesecca)’s not alive. He’d be very proud of this team and how they fight. We really, really want to get St. John’s back where it belongs. If we just keep winning and winning, that’ll take care of itself.”
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