Rick Pitino's Interview Convinced Me To Bet St. John's Winning 2025 National Championship
St. John's Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino's media tour de force continues. At this point, you'd have to be living under a rock to have missed Pitino's intense halftime speech to his team in their 72-70 win at Providence Dec. 20. It was a breakout social video from VICE Sports' "Pitino: Red Storm Rising" series, chronicling the legendary coach's second season at St. John's.
Before St. John's whooped DePaul 82-58 on the road Wednesday, Pitino joined Big Cat and PFT for an in-studio interview on Barstool's "Pardon My Take" podcast, released Friday morning. They discussed several things, such as Pitino's career, his infamous white suit, horse racing, NCAA tournament expansion, selling out Madison Square Garden, etc.
But, the St. John's-related basketball stuff appealed to me the most. In fact, after listening to Pitino's interview, I bet the Johnnies to win the 2024-25 Men's NCAA National Championship at +3500 odds, available at FanDuel and DraftKings. Pitino discussed evolving as a coach in the NIL/Transfer Portal era and making in-season adjustments for the Big Dance.
For instance, PFT cites a stat leading to the question, "Do you feel like the tournament format sets up nicely for your team’s style of play?" The stat PFT referred to was that, since 2012, only two teams that shot worse than 34.0% from 3-point range have made the Final Four. Both were Pitino teams: 2012 Louisville (31.8%) and 2013 Louisville (33.1%).
The former won the 2013 national championship and the latter was eliminated in the Sweet 16. Those teams are similar to Pitino's 2024-25 St. John's squad. Louisville led the country in defensive efficiency in 2013, according to Ken Pom, and the 2014 Cardinals ranked fifth. This season, the Johnnies are second in defensive rating.
St. John's Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino looks to be the first coach in college basketball history to win a title for three different schools in 2025. (Photo credit: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Like those Louisville teams, St. John's crashes the glass relentlessly and scores off turnovers. The Johnnies are 11th in offensive rebounding and 14th in defensive turnover rate (TOV%). They overcome their 29.8% 3-point rate with points off turnovers and easy putbacks. Louisville was top-25 in offensive rebounding and defensive TOV% in 2013-14.
High-level basketball — in the NBA playoffs or the final few rounds of the NCAA Tournament — is about the "battle for possessions," I.e. rebounding and turnovers. St. John's is averaging nearly eight more shots per game than its opponents. More importantly, the Johnnies have two guys who can "beat people off the bounce," as Pitino says.
He is talking about combo guard Kadary Richmond and wing R.J. Luis. A transfer from Big East rival Seton Hall, Richmond was the No. 1 player in the transfer portal, per 247Sports.com. He was selected to the Big East's First-Team All-Preseason. Luis leads the Johnnies in scoring (17.6 points per game) and is a likely first- or second-team All-American.
Richmond is an example of Pitino adapting to college sports in 2025. His contemporaries (Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, and Jim Boeheim) retired before facing these new NIL/Transfer Portal challenges. Pitino has embraced them. He credits his time coaching in Greece after being fired by Louisville for helping him because college hoops are similar to the Euro League.
Circling back to the question from Pardon My Take above, Pitino talks about adding five new plays before March Madness and his mother-in-law's motto, "Nothing changes if nothing changes." Pitino understands and preaches to his team the importance of working to develop their skills and changing with the times. He practices what he preaches.
Eventually, the Johnnies' poor 3-point shooting could be their downfall in a single-elimination tournament. Yet, Pitino is a battle-tested, championship coach with a team that does everything on the court exceptionally well except for hitting 3-pointers. That's good enough to win a national title in any era. Pitino has proven that. Twice, at Kentucky and Louisville.
Hopefully, for my bankroll, he can do it a third time.
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Follow me on X (or Twitter, whatever) @Geoffery-Clark, and check out my OutKick Bets Podcast for more betting content and random rants. I'll add bets to my college basketball 2025 betting record via X all season.