St. John's snubbed from NCAA Tournament in Rick Pitino's first year as head coach
St. John's was snubbed from the 2024 NCAA Tournament in Rick Pitino's first year as head coach as just three teams from the Big East made it to March Madness.
The Red Storm (20-13, 11-9 in the Big East) were not among the 68-team field when the selection committee revealed the bracket on Sunday evening.
"The committee did the best job they could," Pitino said Sunday. "We weren't considered, but we've had a lot of firsts this year, we've had a lot of people that really, really enjoyed watching us play. And we move on."
St. John’s had won six straight games going into Friday night’s matchup with UConn in the Big East tournament semifinals. But a close 95-90 loss to a team the committee thought highly enough to give the No. 1 overall seed to and some upsets in conference tournaments stealing automatic bids was enough to keep them out.
"We tried to do things the right way and we didn't get in," Pitino said. "I never make excuses. I respect the committee for what they do, they give their time, they give their energy to it. They didn't think that we measured up to their standards and we'll take it very positively like men and move forward.
"We're not gonna gripe, we're not gonna say we got screwed, none of that helps. Bitterness does not help. I've had enough bitterness in my life to last a lifetime."
Pitino added that St. John's will not play in the NIT if they are invited.
"I feel if we're gonna move forward, most of our time now needs to be spent recruiting because we're probably gonna have to bring in seven or eight new players," the head coach said about turning down a postseason invite. "Preparing for the NIT does not help our future. Now if it was a normal year – we'd only have to bring in three players, four players, then I think it would be beneficial. If you had a lot of young players that you wanted to further develop.
"But right now, we're in a situation where we gotta replace a lot of players."
Fellow Big East bubble teams Seton Hall (20-12, 13-7 in conference), the committee's second team out, and Providence (21-13, 10-10) also missed the tournament. UConn (No. 1 East Region), Creighton (No. 3 in the Midwest Region) and Marquette (No. 2 in the South Region) were the only teams from the conference to make the tournament.
ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi had the Red Storm as his first team out of the bracket in his final prediction on Sunday afternoon.
Virginia -- Lunardi's second team out -- made the tournament as one of the first four teams and will head to Akron for a play-in game against fellow No. 10 seed Colorado State.
The Red Storm, whose best win came over then-No. 15 Creighton, 80-66, at Madison Square Garden in late February, were the 25th-ranked team by Ken Pomeroy. They were ranked 32 in the NCAA NET Rankings, fourth-best in the Big East.
Pitino called the NET "fraudulent."
"I think the NET's something that shouldn't even be mentioned anymore," Pitino continued, referring to the committee's metrics in selecting teams. "We had a good strength of schedule, KenPom, why mention him? We were [25] in KenPom. So I don't know."
St. John's was the only team in the Top 30 of KenPom's rankings to miss the tournament.
Against Quad 1 opponents (a measure of higher quality opponents) they went 4-10, while going 6-2 against Quad 2 foes.
A run of two wins out of 10 games in the middle of conference play, including defeats to ranked opponents in Creighton, UConn and Marquette twice, hurt Pitino's team and spoiled a 12-4 start to the season.
An early season home, non-conference loss to Michigan (who went 8-24 on the year) couldn't have helped, either.
Pitino made the tournament in two of his three seasons as head coach of the Iona Gaels out of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
