St. John’s excited for first MSG showcase under Rick Pitino in Michigan clash

St. John’s recruits have each echoed one another. 

The school was attractive to them for two reasons: the coach, Hall of Famer Rick Pitino, and the opportunity to play home games at Madison Square Garden.

They have been the two common denominators as Pitino reshaped this year’s team and signed three prospects for next year’s recruiting class. 

And, unlike the recent past for St. John’s, Pitino is going to do everything possible to maximize the Garden.

Upon taking the job last March, he said he wanted to play every league game there sometime soon, and Pitino frequently took prospects there for visits whenever possible.

He singled out those trips as a major factor in the Johnnies’ spring success recruiting through the transfer portal. 

“I did take a tour through Madison Square Garden and once I saw it, I was sold,” senior point guard Daniss Jenkins said. 

Technically, the Pitino era started last Tuesday in the regular-season opener against Stony Brook at Carnesecca Arena.

But Monday feels like the unofficial beginning, the first St. John’s game under Pitino at the Garden as Michigan visits.

It will be the first of eight MSG contests for St. John’s, their most since the 2014-15 season.

Pitino wants to play 10 there next year, and is hoping to open the season there against SEC power Alabama. 

“We’re partners with them, we believe that Rick is going to make this program one of the premier programs again in the country,” Joel Fisher, the executive vice president of MSG Marquee Events, said in a phone interview. “We consider them another franchise of the Garden. … We’d love to do even more games with them [in future seasons] when it makes sense, and it will make sense.” 

This first game feels like an event. Athletic director Mike Cragg said St. John’s has been working around the clock to fill up the building.

The school expects 1,500 students to be in attendance, which would be easily the most since Cragg’s arrival in the fall of 2018.

Consensus top-10 senior recruit VJ Edgecombe of Long Island Lutheran will be on an official visit and Pitino’s new-look team will be facing an early test. 

“I can only imagine it’s going to be electric,” senior guard Jordan Dingle said. “I can see there is a lot of excitement building up about us playing there and just behind us this entire season. I think that it’s really going to come to a head on that stage, the bright lights of Madison Square Garden playing Michigan, who has a really great team this year.” 

Pitino has done his part to create excitement.

He recently penned a letter to New Yorkers that was published in The Post in which he outlined his through-the-roof hopes for the program and wrote that he felt like he was home coaching St. John’s as a New Yorker who once led the Knicks.

It was an untraditional move, but Pitino knows the Johnnies are making up for lost time. 

“St. John’s needs a brand because they lost 20 years,” Pitino said. “People from probably age 15 to 30 don’t remember the greatness of St. John’s. … We’re trying to make this brand special.” 

The Garden is a major part of that brand, whether it is hosting recruits or playing more games there.

For years, St. John’s has called Madison Square Garden its second home without following through by actually playing in the building more than a few times.

Like just about everything else with this program since Pitino’s arrival, that is changing. 

“All the things we set out to do with Rick Pitino, and Rick Pitino, with us is that we are a big-name, big-city brand with history in the game and we should [be able to reach] the highest heights of the game, be it Final Fours, national championships and all the things that are possible and Rick has done,” Cragg said. “You do that in the greatest arena. That’s our home.”