With 4:56 remaining in the second half Saturday and No. 2 seed St. John’s trying to stage a comeback from a 13-point deficit against No. 10 seed Arkansas, Red Storm star RJ Luis Jr. hit two free throws to cut the lead to two points.
Then he hit the bench. And did not return the remainder of the game.
The curious decision to sit the Big East Player of the Year and scoring leader for a 31-win team during the closing run was all the more puzzling as their comeback bid fell flat in a 75-66 loss.
In that stretch, St. John’s was outscored 11-4 and finished the game missing eight of its final nine shots from the field. When its offense needed a super-charge to catch-up and play from behind, Luis — one of the few live wires who can ignite an otherwise pedestrian offense — looked on from the sidelines.
“He played 30 minutes,” Pitino said defiantly postgame. “That’s a long time.”
Pitino was then asked if Luis was benched due to fatigue.
“No,” he responded. “He played 30 minutes and I went with other people. … Don’t ask me leading questions. You already know why he didn’t play.”
Pitino was later asked about Luis’ telling reporters that he didn’t feel like he played like a leader. In response, the coach singled out Kadary Richmond, Deivon Smith and Aaron Smith — curiously omitting Luis — as players who he appreciated for “giving them every single thing they had.”
Luis finished the game 3-of-17 shooting and was 1 of 5 in the second half before sitting for the stretch run. Pitino noted that he would not “knock” one of his players in public, but he did read Luis’ stat line and seemed to take issue specifically with the style of his team’s offensive strategy and execution.
“We lost the game because we did not move the basketball well enough,” Pitino said. “And that led to us shooting a very low percentage. We’re a team that has to have a high number of assists to win. We didn’t tonight.”
St. John’s finished with just five assists to six turnovers and shot a woeful 2 of 22 from 3-point range and 21 of 75 from the field in the loss. The Red Storm’s season ends after matching a program-high with 31 wins under Pitino, tying the previous record set in 1984-85 and 1985-86 under the legend Lou Carnesecca.
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