The St. John’s basketball team can win the outright Big East regular season championship on Saturday afternoon against Seton Hall (7-21, 2-15 Big East) for the first time in 39 years.
It’s a day the program has longed to see since its golden era of Lou Carnesecca, Chris Mullin, Ron Artest, and everyone in between. The opportunity to celebrate against one of its biggest rivals amid one of its worst seasons ever should make the victory that much sweeter – but not for star guard Kadary Richmond.
If he could put any other opponent on the opposite side of the floor he would.
“I wish it was anybody else,” the Seton Hall transfer said over Zoom earlier in the week.
“I did a lot of good things [at Seton Hall]. I got a lot of good relationships with some of the players still, so celebrating in front of them and all that stuff wouldn’t probably be in my to do list.”
Richmond has shined for the No. 7 Johnnies (25-4, 16-2 Big East) since the schedule turned to conference play and has done it over the last month with injuries to both of his groins. Since returning to the Prudential Center where he was greeted with a constant chorus of boos, he’s averaging 16.5 points per game and has thrusted himself into the race for Big East Player of the Year.
“But it will be done,” he concluded his remarks about the potential to celebrate against the Pirates.
“He's always acted like a professional,” Rick Pitino said on Friday. “He's a unique individual. He says all the right things, very articulate.”
If St. John’s wins against Seton Hall, it does not plan to cut the nets down at Madison Square Garden for its outright Big East regular season championship. Pitino said he asked his players what they wanted to do and “unanimously voted it down”.
The Hall of Famer mentioned that his teams have never cut down the nets for a regular season championship.
“We have another game to play. It’s all premature. We don’t know if we are going to win tomorrow, so we don’t want to plan anything,” he explained.
St. John’s has encouraged its fans to wear white for its annual ‘White Out’ although Pitino was non-committal on wearing his white suit that took the fanbase by storm citing that he couldn’t find his pants to the suit.
The Red Storm will also be honoring its three seniors – Kadary Richmond, Deivon Smith, and Aaron Scott – prior to tipoff (2:15 p.m. ET, CBS) at Madison Square Garden.