Rick Pitino has unusual Ramadan thoughts

The Islamic month of Ramadan often winds up overlapping with college basketball conference tournaments and the NCAA Tournament. That’s notable because of the associated sunup-to-sundown religious fasting, which can pose some challenges for athletes. With some, including St. John’s Red Storm junior forward Sadiku Ibine Ayo, the approach includes IVs during games to ensure they’re properly hydrated. And that led to an unusual line from St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino after their Big East semifinal win over Marquette Friday:

“I asked the trainers and him, can we get something in the IV to help his defense?”

Coach Rick Pitino’s comments on St. John’s forward Sadiku Ibine Ayo getting pregame IV fluids during Ramadan. pic.twitter.com/0zXCAgzWN2

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 15, 2025

That fits with the always–quotable Pitino’s propensity for one-liners. But this isn’t the only thought Pitino’s had on this. As Adam Zagoria wrote at NJ.com, Pitino’s been supportive of Ayo, but has questioned other players who have tried to also go without water in support of him, saying “They should never ever do that again.” And he had quite the joking lines on back-and-forth religious discussions with Ayo:

[Pitino] also said he jokingly asked Ayo, who is not supposed to listen to music in the locker room or elsewhere during Ramadan, to convert to Catholicism for the next month as March Madness begins. Ayo responded by asking Pitino to become a Muslim.

“I said, ‘Okay, Diku, I won’t eat during the day,‘” Pitino said. “‘I’ll work out in the mornings. Before the sun rises, I am going to listen to music. And he said to me, ‘You can’t swear, Coach.’ I said, ‘Okay, I will not swear.’ So I haven’t had said a swear word in three, in four days of practice. And I’m trying to help him along.”

Pitino, Ayo, and St. John’s will take on Creighton in the Big East tournament final Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. That game’s set for a 6:30 p.m. ET start, with the New York sunset not until 7:03 p.m., so there may be further questions of IVs (defensive-boosting or not) after that.