The rivalry between St. John's and Connecticut, which has been dormant for many years, is starting to heat up.
And naturally, it revolves around two stubborn coaches, Rick Pitino and Dan Hurley.
Over the past few days, both players have been taking passive-aggressive shots at each other over the fate of next season's games.
The No. 4 Huskies narrowly defeated the Johnnies in Hartford just over a week ago.
While discussing the various venues St. John's has played this year, Pitino made headlines when he said the team will play UConn at Carnesecca Arena next year.
“I mean, the Garden is a great place to play, and the only game at Carnesecca next year at this point is against Connecticut. We're going to negotiate all the other games,” he said Saturday in a close game against Hofstra at UBS Arena. he said after winning.
When asked if he was serious about it, Pitino said, “100 percent. I'm playing Carnesecca. It's not a joke at all. I have my reasons.”
It is thought that one of the reasons was to make adjustments to Harley.
St. John's and Pitino felt Hurley's behavior on the sidelines during the UW win was inappropriate, officials said.
Another was Huskies fans flooding into the Garden during the game against St. John's.
Asked about Pitino's comments on Monday, Hurley said:
“Listen, when you're ranked in the top five or something all year long and you're the defending national champion and you're having all the success that we had at UConn, everybody knows that.'' We're aiming for that,'' Hurley said. “Everybody's trying to get what we have. Here at UConn he's won the national championship four times since 2000. Since then, especially since the transfer from Fran When I did that, I wasn't very successful. [Fraschilla] Mike Jarvis had a really good team with Ron Artest.
“They're going to do what it takes to strengthen the program,” he continued. “But if you’re not named Duke, Carolina, Kansas or Kentucky, you’re probably going to miss a few things.” [teams] Here — they all aim to be where we are. We've had incredible success here in basketball. There are programs that have never been to the Final Four and some haven't been to the NCAA Tournament in 20 years, so there's obviously a lot of punch-ups. ”
St. John's associate head coach Steve Masiello, who played under Pitino at Kentucky and coached under him at Louisville, tweeted in response. Don't wait. I think it was after the 7th time! ”
Ironically, St. John's may not ultimately be the only one deciding where St. John's vs. Connecticut's home games will be played next season. Big East policy states that if a school holds three or more of his home games at a public venue, the commissioner has the authority to require his two most high-profile home games to be held at that location. ing.
“The host school may not change the contest for competitive reasons,” the policy states.
Another factor is St. John's has a partnership with The Garden, and MSG would no doubt want the Connecticut game to be played there.
The last time St. John's played UConn at Carnesecca Arena was in 1990.
For now, it's just a matter of next year, whether Pitino is actually serious about playing in Queens, and whether the league or the Garden will intervene.
But one thing is for sure: there is spice to this competition.
It's sure to be an exciting afternoon on February 3rd when the state of Connecticut comes to the Garden for Johnny's performance.
