There's another layer to the story of the St. John's and Connecticut venues.
Weeks after manager Rick Pitino said he wanted to play the Huskies at Carnesecca Arena again next season, athletic director Mike Cragg told the league it would be the 100th anniversary of Lou Carnesecca's birth. He pointed out that he had requested that the match be held on January 2nd. May 2025.
Big East policy states that if a school plays three or more home games in a public venue, the conference can choose where the most high-profile games are played.
The Garden, where St. John's University has played eight games this year, would obviously prefer to have the Connecticut game in its building.
“Let me just say this, this was planned over the summer. We want to honor Louis with a big game when he turns 100, whether it's in Connecticut or Villanova or Georgetown.” We want it to be a championship team, and definitely Connecticut and Villanova are the two elite champions,” Pitino said.
“As I said the other day, I don't think Connecticut knows how to take compliments. The fact that we want to play at Carnesecca is the best compliment ever, because it's a tourist-oriented college. Because Kentucky, Kansas and UW have the three best fan bases in basketball. They travel the best, they have the best fans. They have sold out houses, big crowds at home. We want a championship team, and if the Big East doesn't give us a championship team, we're going to get a huge non-conference opponent to Louie's credit. You hear about it. all, [UConn] program. ”
One of the reasons Pitino wants to play this game on campus is to coordinate with UConn coach Dan Hurley.
St. John's and Pitino felt Hurley's actions on the sideline during UW's Dec. 23 win were inappropriate, officials said.
Another factor was that Huskies fans flooded the Garden when the Huskies played St. John's.
When asked about Pitino's original plan to move the game, Hurley said: Here at UConn he won the national championship four times since 2000, but hasn't had much success since then, especially when he transferred from Franconia University. [Fraschilla] Mike Jarvis had a really good team with Ron Artest.
“They're going to do what they need to do to strengthen their program. But guys other than the names Duke, Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, they're probably going to miss some. [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 tweeted in response. Don't wait. I think it was after the 7th time! ”
