Mike Repole commits to "do more" for St. John's basketball NIL next season

The St. John's basketball team will be getting a boost next season off the court to help its success on the floor.

Mike Repole, a billionaire alum of St. John's, pledged to do more to help Rick Pitino and the Johnnies on Wednesday afternoon.

"I need and will do more than I did this year," Repole said on X.

The post was in response to an ESPN Outside the Lines segment which featured former Red Storm head coach Fran Fraschilla talking about Pitino's controversial comments on Sunday night following the Johnnies' loss to Seton Hall.

Pitino apologized for his remarks on Wednesday after St. John's defeated Georgetown.

Fraschilla said the Red Storm have as good of an NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) situation as any team in the Big East because of Repole.

"Rick [Pitino], Fr. [Brian] Shanley, and St. John’s, I’m committed," his social media post continued.

The co-founder of Vitamin Water also mentioned "7 digits" in his comments, signaling that he's willing to pledge at least a million dollars to the program.

"Mike [Repole] has been behind us all the way," Pitino said after the 90-85 victory for the Johnnies.

"He's been great to us, great to some other sports, fabulous booster, just stays out of his way because he's into horses in a big way."

Pitino's and Repole's friendship stemmed from the race track as the 55-year old's barn, Repole Stable, has skyrocketed as one of the sport's best, saddling recent champions like Forte, Nest, and this year's 2-year old champion, Fierceness.

Repole, who has not been around the program as much in recent years after his rant on WFAN surrounding the program's very public coaching search after the dismissal of Chris Mullin, recently partnered his company, NOBULL, with Tom Brady's TB12 to create the most complete health and wellness company.

"It's not about money with this program...St. John's can be every bit as good as any program," Pitino added.

"It's tough, though. I'm not going to lie to you," he continued. "It's really tough because I'm going to lose six guys that really are starting to gel, getting better, and I have to replace them and I was thinking in my mind what we have to do when this [transfer] portal opens a day after Selection Sunday."

The Johnnies will see Joel Soriano, Daniss Jenkins, Jordan Dingle, Chris Ledlum, Nahiem Alleyne, and Sean Conway leave the program this year due to graduation and exhausting all of their eligibility.

Jaiden Glover, a 4-star prospect, will join the team along with 4-star center Khaman Maker and Greek international prospect Lefteris Liotopoulos next season.

Rick Pitino said he believes that Mike Repole will be at the Storm's next road game against Butler on Wednesday, February 28 (8:30 p.m ET, CBS Sports Network).

In the meantime, the Johnnies (15-12, 7-9 Big East) will try and revive its NCAA Tournament hopes on Sunday afternoon (12:00 p.m. ET, CBS) against No. 15 Creighton (20-7, 11-5 Big East).