A knock on Kadary Richmond during his time at Seton Hall was that he didn’t fight through injuries. It stemmed from games he missed last season in which the Pirates said were due to ‘general soreness’.
The injury designation was thrown in Richmond’s face as he transferred to St. John’s this offseason and returned to play Seton Hall as students made signs of the Brooklyn native as a military general which read, ‘General Soreness.’
However, Pitino has debunked those ideas for the second straight game after the No. 10 Johnnies landed wins over DePaul and Seton Hall.
“I think Kadary probably gets a little annoyed with people thinking he doesn’t play through pain, so he’s playing through it,” Pitino said on Wednesday night after the Red Storm’s 24-point victory over the Blue Demons.
The Hall of Famer expanded on his comments after an 89-75 win over UConn on Sunday afternoon, revealing that Richmond is dealing with two groin pulls.
“Kadary Richmond is more injured than any player I’ve coached right now, and he fights through it…I am a little concerned about Kadary right now. We may have to sit him out and just give him a lot of rest to prepare for the postseason, if necessary, we’re going to do that.”
Richmond went for 18 points in St. John’s victory against the Huskies, playing 25 minutes, and saving his best for last with 11 points in the second half after UConn cut a 22-point lead for the Red Storm down to nine.
“He should not have played tonight, and we got some problems because he’s hurting big time,” Pitino explained.
“He’s got problems all over his anatomy and he played the game and played hard. So, I don’t know anything except he killed it, and he needs time off, as much as we can give him right now, because he’s really hurting.”
Kadary Richmond has not missed a game this season and put himself into the race for the Big East Player of the Year after a slow start to his Red Storm tenure. He’s now averaging 12.7 points, 5.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 2.0 steals per game.
“Most 99-percnet of the players would not have played tonight and I don’t’ say that just to geek him up. They would not have played. He’s really, really hurting.”
St. John’s will have at least a share of the Big East regular season title on the line when it takes the court again on Wednesday night (9:00 p.m. ET, CBS Sports Network) against Butler and it hopes its superstar guard will be on the floor too.