St. John’s Coach Rick Pitino Responds to Reporter’s Question on RJ Luis Benching in Arkansas Upset

After leading his team to the Big East Championship game, St. John’s head coach, Rick Pitino, commended the team’s tenacity in a press conference. He likened their calm under pressure to the stability of the stock market.

Well today, the stock market collapsed. 

With the school’s first conference title in 25 years under their belt, the St. John’s Red Storm, seeded second, entered March Madness with high hopes, marking a new chapter under Pitino’s leadership.

Instead, the team suffered what could be considered the first major upset of this year’s tournament when they fell to 10-seed Arkansas 75-66.

Despite high expectations, St. John’s faced an unexpected defeat in the early stages of the tournament. One of the most scrutinized decisions was Pitino opting to bench RJ Luis Jr., a key player, during a critical juncture in the game.

Luis, who won Big East Player of the Year and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Big East Tournament, was pulled from the game with 4:56 remaining in the contest and did not appear again – despite it being a two-point contest at the time.

When asked by Newsday’s Roger Rubin why he ended up sitting Luis down for so long, Pitino replied, ‘[He] played 30 minutes. That’s a long time.’

Rubin followed up asking if he was tired and Pitino replied, ‘No. Played 30 minutes and I went with other people. You already know the answers, Roger. You’re asking leading questions. You already know it.’ 

It’s a very odd response from Pitino – especially considering that on the season, Luis averaged about 32 minutes per game.

But when asked if there was a particular reason why the benching was in order, Pitino hinted at Luis’ poor on-court performance as the logic.

‘You know he was 3-for-17 (FG); you know he was 0-for-3 (3s). So, you’re answering your own… I’m not gonna knock one of my players,’ Pitino said bluntly.

It was one of Luis’ worst games in a St. John’s uniform – with a final statline of nine points and seven rebounds.

The rest of the team didn’t stack up either. Star guard Kadary Richmond only had five points before fouling out with about six-and-a-half minutes remaining. Guard Aaron Scott shot an appalling 1-10. Simeon Wilcher only scored two points as he also was in foul trouble early.

Big man Zuby Ejiofor led the Johnnies with a 23 point, 12 rebound double-double. Backup guard Deivon Smith had 13 points and six rebounds to back him up.

But overall, the Red Storm shot an awful 28 percent from the field.

That included going 1-for-9 in the final three-and-a-half minutes of the game. Bizarrely, a St. John’s team that was 329th in the nation in 3-point shooting percentage decided to take five straight shots from deep in the final two minutes – and missed all of them.

At games end, that 3-point shooting came to haunt them as they only hit 2-of-22 attempts (an abysmal 9.1 percent) from beyond the arc.

Arkansas didn’t fare much better from deep (10.5 percent on 2-of-19 shooting) but did much better from the floor, shooting 42.9 percent.

Forward Billy Richmond III led the Razorbacks with 16 points on 6-10 shooting plus nine rebounds. Kartner Knox grabbed 15 points while guard Johnell Davis put up 13 points.

Adding insult to the injury for Pitino, the loss came to a Razorbacks team coached by longtime frenemy John Calipari.

Calipari’s Razorbacks now advance to the Sweet 16 for the second time in three years. They’ll play the winner of the game between 3-seed Texas Tech and 11-seed Drake.