Rick Pitino gives a press conference after St. John's loses to Iowa State at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. Photo Credit: St. John's Red Storm on YouTube Photo Credit: St. John’s Red Storm on YouTube
By Matt Clapp on

No. 15 Iowa State held off No. 14 St. John’s 83-82 in a college basketball thriller on Monday at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.

After the loss, St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino didn’t like questions from a pair of reporters during his postgame press conference.

“Rick, I’ve got a two-parter,” a reporter told Pitino. “First, just to flash all the way to the end of the game. No timeout called there.”

Pitino stopped the reporter there.

“We had two timeouts,” Pitino said. “One for injury, and we ran the play that we wanted the time before. We had two timeouts in the last minute. One for an injury, and one they called it.”

“That question is ridiculous,” Pitino continued. “So, go to the next one.”

“Dylan Darling fouling out,” the reporter said to begin part two. “How much did that play a factor in the closing minutes of the game?”

“As I just told you, it had nothing to do with; the guards played excellent defense,” Pitino responded, referring to his opening statement in the press conference. “They didn’t come out with the blocking out on the glass. They got four offensive rebounds with the game on the line. It wasn’t Dylan Darling. It was their ability to come up with the backboard, and our inability to come up with the rebound.”

The next reporter had a question that also peeved Pitino.

“Even [Joson Sanon] struggled,” a reporter said. “4-of-16 combined. How hard it is for you…?

“See, you don’t look at the right stats,” Pitino said before the reporter could finish their question. “See, if you were looking at the right stats, you would say neither guy had a rebound. That’s what you would say. Not the shooting percentage. You would give credit to the other team for playing good defense. And if you wanted to say something that they didn’t do, they didn’t rebound. So, the first part of your question is they played good defense. The second part is they didn’t rebound.”

That’s a head coach who’s very frustrated by a tough loss. Pitino and St. John’s will look to rebound in their game on Tuesday vs Baylor in the Players Era Festival.

While Pitino wasn’t in a good mood on Monday night, he did tell the media last week that college basketball “is at an all-time high” right now.

About Matt Clapp

Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.

He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.

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