St. John's basketball celebration gives Rick Pitino a Gatorade bath after 900th win

The St. John’s basketball team was not going to hold back on the celebrations for Rick Pitino after its 88-83 victory against Xavier on Saturday afternoon that landed the Hall of Famer his 900th career victory.

After the buzzer, the players were handed shirts with that commemorated the milestone with an image of Pitino with his name and the number ‘900’ across the chest as they gathered at halfcourt during Pitino’s postgame interview.

But the huge celebration was saved for the locker room when Rick Pitino was drowned in a water bath that was dumped on him from a Gatorade cooler, and he looked like he loved every minute of it from the photos and videos the team published on social media.

He was also presented the game ball by Zuby Ejiofor.

“It was awesome,” Dylan Darlng said of the postgame scene. “Coach won’t say but he really wanted this one. We all know he really wanted this one against his on and, honestly, just really fun to be able to pull that through and see him like that.”

Darling was nails for the Red Storm in the second half, scoring all 11 points in the second half and hitting the game winning shot with 53.2 seconds remaining to put the Red Storm up by two, 84-82, after Xavier regained the lead.

“I’ve said this along to you guys all year long, how enjoyable [his players] are, but tonight was the icing on the cake,” Pitino said.

St. John’s trailed by as many as 16 points, 53-37, early in the second half after Xavier built a 12-point lead at halftime. It was similar to its comeback victory on Tuesday night against Seton Hall in which the Red Storm trailed by six at the break and saw its deficit crater to 15 points early in the second half.

Yet, once again, the Johnnies had a comeback in them and used a 16-1 run to get themselves right back in contention.

“It was a lot of fun,” Dillon Mitchell said of the emotions of the game. “Definitely just the atmosphere – it was crazy.”

The Red Storm looked like it might have run out of gas after Zuby Ejiofor fouled out with Xavier back in front but Darling and Ruben Prey, Ejiofor’s replacement, came up with the two biggest baskets in the victory.

“I’m happy for him that he got 900 [wins],” Richard Pitino said. “I think he’s the best coach to ever coach college basketball.”

While the win was historic for Rick Pitino because of the number of victories, he also passed Bob Knight and took sole possession of fourth place on the NCAA Division I men’s basketball all-time wins list, only trailing Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim, and Roy Williams.

St. John’s has now won six straight games and has cemented itself as the top team in the Big East alongside No. 2 UConn with its first matchup of the season quickly approaching in two weeks.

In the meantime, the Johnnies will return home to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night (7:00 p.m. ET, Peacock) to complete its regular season series against Butler.