Davon Smith never played for the late South Florida head coach Amir Abdul-Rahim, who died on Oct. 24 at age 43 due to complications following a medical procedure.
But Abdulrahim still made a strong impression on the St. John's point guard.
“He was a great guy. He was a great coach. A lot of people posted about him that day, even from the Atlanta area. He was loved,” Smith said Friday, when St. John's was scheduled to play at Carnesecca on Saturday. He said this while preparing to play against Quinnipiac at the arena. “He was in a lot of gyms and recruited a lot of top talent in Atlanta. … He was a great guy. He was a very optimistic, cool guy.”
Abdul-Rahim first scouted Smith when he was an assistant coach at the University of Georgia, where Smith was a four-star recruit from Grayson High School in Georgia.
He was almost committed to a program in South Florida in the spring of 2023, but chose Utah instead. A year ago, Abdul-Rahim led the Bulls to an astonishing 25-8 record, an AAC regular season crown and an NIT appearance.
“I've been through the transfer portal a few times now and he's always reached out and told me what path to take or just given me his honest opinion. [coaches] I knew him personally,” Smith said. “That kind of thing is a great insider for me and keeps me motivated to always stay hungry.”
Coach Rick Pitino gave the team a “C” for its performance against Fordham, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
“In general, the first game I rated was a D-plus, so it's a little better than normal,” he said.
One area he would like to see improved is St. John's 3-point defense. Fordham shot 34.8 percent (8 of 23) from long range.
“We have to protect the 3-point line more than ever,” he said. “We're a decent shooting team. I don't think that's our main asset. We're going to have some great nights, but we definitely have to stop it and we couldn't stop it against Fordham. And that was troublesome.”
Pitino and starting center Zuby Ejiofor went one-on-one against Fordham and had just five points and one rebound in 21 minutes.
“Zubby was his worst enemy, which is why he had a mediocre game,” Pitino said. “He didn't run the floor, he didn't outrun the other team's five. I said, 'Zubbie, sometimes you blame the other team's defense for why you had an average game. But let's think about why it was an average game. “He saw that and realized that, but that’s not going to happen against Quinnipiac. ”
