St. John's basketball head coach Rick Pitino talking college football wasn't on anyone's minds Sunday. Yet Lane Kiffin bolting from Ole Miss to LSU sparked quite the conversations — including from Pitino himself.
Pitino shares this commonality with LSU's future leader: The basketball legend also has coached at multiple places. Yet he summed up Kiffin's decision with the perfect college basketball analogy.
“I'm not knocking football, but there’s something wrong with their calendar. I'm at SJU and we are potentially a one seed and can win a National Championship this year, and I leave in March??? What’s going on here?” Pitino posted on the social media website X, formerly Twitter.
He's certainly not wrong — as it's rare a CBB head coach during March Madness leaves amid a run in the tournament. It's always after the tournament when coaches and schools can make a decision.
Kiffin, though, is leaving during a historic College Football Playoff pursuit in Oxford.
Rick Pitino leading St. John's after disappointing loss
Pitino and the Red Storm endured a rather forgettable pre-Thanksgiving moment.
The past national champion winner and his highly-ranked team took a big loss to Auburn. The kind that prompted the honest version of Pitino to come out following the 85-74 defeat.
“We’re not a great defensive team, we’re not. We’re average at best, and we’ve got to become a good defensive team before we become a great defensive team,” Pitino told the media after the loss.
It also ended a rather rough outing in the Players Era Tournament held in Las Vegas. St. John's went 1-2 overall in the stacked tournament field that helped launch Thanksgiving week. St. John's is now unranked at 4-3 overall.
