Rick Pitino's fiery halftime speech calling out players while trailing released

Rick Pitino has been vintage himself yet again this season in his second year at St. John’s.

Few things have proven that quite like the clip released by Vice Sports as part of their documentary titled ‘Pitino: Red Storm Rising’. It showed Pitino’s halftime speech from back on December 20th with St. John’s losing at Providence as he got at his team for a lack of toughness and mentality to handle adversity.

Clip from Vice Sports of Rick Pitino at halftime of the St. John's game at Providence. #sjubb was down big, and rallied to win. pic.twitter.com/5gAbXa0BVS

— Zach Braziller (@NYPost_Brazille) February 17, 2025

“Dig in and be a basketball player! Dig in,” Pitino shouted. “Every time you miss a shot, your game deflates. We don’t care about your missed shots! Play f***ing defense!”

“You guys keep blowing opportunity upon opportunity upon opportunity. You’re like children with bad things happening. Instead of digging in and being tougher, you wilt,” continued Pitino. “Where is your f***ing toughness? Where have you guys been raised that you’re so weak mentally that you just f***ing give up when something doesn’t go right for you? Don’t you know what adversity is all about? That’s the f***ing game of life – not the game of basketball! You don’t f***ing get down when things go wrong. You dig in and get tougher! Your whole life is gonna be adversity! Learn how to f***ing deal with it!”

As harsh as that f-bomb filled message was from Pitino, something about it worked for St. John’s.

After being down 13 and as much as 16 against the Friars on the road, the Red Storm stormed back to win at 72-70 to move to 10-2 overall. They’d improve their own field-goal percentage at 44.4% that half as four of their five starters would finish the in double figures, led by F Zuby Ejifor with a double-double of 19 points and 10 rebounds. They’d also nearly cutting their opponent’s rate in half from 63% to start down to 32% in the second half.

With that, Pitino’s postgame speech was probably a little more positive and at least had fewer expletives.

Since then, St. John’s is 12-2 to be at 22-4 overall and 13-2 in the Big East. That has the Red Storm at No. 10 in the AP Poll and No. 16 in this weekend’s seeding reveal by the NCAA Selection Committee. They also have a two-game lead in their conference standings with five games to go in league play.

That resumé, with one of the best defense’s in the nation as part of it, will also have Pitino in consideration for honors as Coach of the Year with where the Johnnies have come already in his tenure.

Pitino has been doing this a long time now and, as such, still has a fiery, old-fashioned approach. His coaching still works, though, based on this instance and this year as a whole up in Queens.