Why does Rick Pitino win? The answer is in no-man’s-land
this preseason at St. John’s. Every day ended with an autopsy revealing a fatal flaw. St. John’s couldn’t shoot.
“The lowest metrics I’ve seen from my team, ever,” Pitino recently told me.
Pitino and his staff could have very well taken the Sisyphean route. More reps. More shots. More 3s until the numbers changed. Instead, a far simpler decision. Shoot closer... So, before this team ever played a game, he began devoting parts of his most valuable resource — those individual workouts — to players operating in what most other programs now consider no-man’s-land. Pitino’s 42-minute one-on-one training sessions began including 20 minutes of pull-up 15-footers, and mid-range shots off curls, and all variety of floaters. In the win over UConn on Friday night, Pitino’s team made 9 of 26 shots at the rim, 4 of 21 3-pointers, and an absurd 13 of 18 shots between the paint and 3-point line. The game’s decisive play was one most modern basketball fans would deem a terrible shot. On a baseline inbound with 3 seconds remaining on the shot clock and 12 seconds remaining on the game clock, with St. John’s leading by two, assistant coach Bob Walsh drew up a counter that resulted in Luis taking a catch-and-shoot jumper from about 19 feet out, just inside the arc, from the side of the basket.
Hurley, a devotee to current shot quality convention, wants opposing teams to take bad shots. He wants opposing players taking shots off the dribble, shots from the midrange (“middies,” Hurley calls ’em) and contested shots. Problem is, that’s exactly what St. John’s does.
“Like, those 15-17 footers?” Hurley said. “You’re … you know … as a defense, you kind of don’t mind those. But then, these guys are really proficient at it. So … yeah.”
