The ebbs and flows of a season are apparent for every team and player but the St. John’s basketball team, coming off a 1-point loss on the road against Creighton, are trying to look for a spark.
Despite the lackluster 3-point shooting, a focus of the Red Storm’s issues this season has been the inconsistent play of Seton Hall transfer Kadary Richmond, pegged as one of the top players to enter the transfer portal last offseason.
Richmond hasn’t been bad by any stretch of the imagination, but he hasn’t lived up to the stat line he produced for the Pirates a season ago with 15.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 2.2 steals per game.
In fact, his numbers have dropped in every statistical category except his field goal percentage (46.8-percent) and turnovers (2.1 per game) and has struggled most notably from the free throw line where he is making just 46.2-percent of his attempts compared to 80.7 last year.
The issues have put Rick Pitino back in the film room where he studied three games of his at Seton Hall to try and find better ways to have the preseason All-American candidate impact the outcome of games.
“The only major difference I witnessed is the ball was in his hands more at Seton Hall and I feel he’s put on about eight or ten pounds that he needs to lose,” Pitino said.
“At Seton Hall, he had the ball 80-percent of the time,” he continued. “He’s not as quick as he was then, and I talked to him last night about it and studying you could see it.”
Pitino said that he believes shedding the weight will help Richmond not get as fatigued on the court while improving his speed.
“He needs to be 205 [pounds], not 212 [or] 214 [pounds].”
It is all to try and help St. John’s play with more pace, something that was lacking in its loss to Creighton and a direct contributor to why the Johnnies did not leave Omaha with a victory, according to its Hall of Fame coach.
“And the faster you play, the more Kadary should be lethal,” Pitino added.
RJ Luis is another player on the roster that Rick Pitino said needs to lose a few pounds in order to play more efficiently in the style the Red Storm wants to play.
The hope for St. John’s (11-3, 2-1 Big East) is that Kadary Richmond's numbers rise as the season progresses, like they have throughout his career. He averaged 17.3 points per game last season in the months of January and February with Seton Hall and his play will need to be elevated as St. John’s looks to solidify its NCAA Tournament candidacy.
The Red Storm will host Butler (7-7, 0-3 Big East) on Saturday (2:00 p.m. ET, FS1), beginning a stretch of home games in six of its next nine contests.