St. John’s Red Storm basketball coach Rick Pitino is coaching a different generation in New York City than during his tenures coaching the Kentucky Wildcats in the 1980s and 1990s and the Louisville Cardinals in the 2000s and 2010s. As such, Pitino coaches his current team much differently.
As Pitino admitted, players today get “too embarrassed” when called out individually and have to be disciplined as a group, fitting for a catholic school like St. John’s University.
“I don’t coach the players today the same way I did at Louisville or Kentucky because they’re different. Now I can get on them, but collectively. I can’t get on them individually because they get embarrassed very easily. Not that they’re not tough, they just get embarrassed. So I bring them in one-on-one and I show them the tape, and I show them analytically about the mistakes you’re making,” Pitino said Thursday on “Boomer and Gio.”
“But they’re the same players. They play just as hard as any team I’ve ever coached, it’s just you gotta handle them differently today. They’re professionals, you gotta treat them like pros. But you also have to be teachers. I teach the exact same way I did 40, 50 years ago.”
The kids Pitino coaches now grew up in an era where anything they did out of the ordinary was filmed and put on social media. It’s not a surprise to hear that they don’t respond well to a call-out, especially when wondering if that video will go viral and they’ll be mocked.
Times have changed, and while most think it has grown simpler with ease of access to technology and information, life has a way of reinventing the wheel when it comes to new challenges for new generations.
After having a roster with an average age of 24 last year, Pitino’s team’s average is now 20. Those challenges are even more pronounced now.
Who does St. John’s play next?
No. 5 St. John’s takes on the No. 15 Alabama Crimson Tide at noon on Saturday from the World’s Most Famous Arena.
They’ll look to start the season 2-0 after a 108-74 win over the Quinnipiac Bobcats this past Monday at Carnesseca Arena.