St. John’s coach Rick Pitino believes ‘there’s no such thing as a blue blood anymore’ 49%
By Peter Sblendorio0%
3/27/2026, 5:25:56 PM
Keywords: St Johns, Rick Pitino, March Madness, Ncaa Tournament, Blue Blood, Duke, Jon Scheyer, Tom Izzo, Dan Hurley
BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Appeal to Authority, and Biased Writer Voice, with Ambiguity (Equivocation) as the most egregious example at 32% saturation with 261 hits. Analysis detected 1,638 faulty-reasoning hits from 816 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 49.7% and a BS Rank of 49% (10,927 of 21,198 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 51.50% of the article peer group.
Paying the players has led to more parity in college basketball.
Just ask St.
John’s head coach Rick Pitino, who believes the traditional blue-blood NCAA programs that long dominated the sport no longer have an extreme advantage.
“There's no difference between Kentucky, North Carolina than Illinois or St.
John's.
There’s no difference anymore,” Pitino said Thursday, ahead of his team’s Sweet 16 meeting with Duke in Washington, D.C., on Friday night.
“There's no difference between Michigan State, who is a blue blood, to any of the other teams from the conferences, from Mississippi, when they get it going.
It's all going to be the same.
You're going to see 40 to 50 teams all the same.
“There's no such thing as a blue blood anymore.”
And Pitino sees that as a good thing.
In the name, image and likeness (NIL) and transfer-portal era of college sports, schools are able to offer athletes significant money to play for their programs.
Since 2021, the NCAA has not required transferring players to sit out for a season before suiting up for a new school.
Initially, that rule applied only to players transferring for the first time.
Now, players can transfer after every season, if they so choose, without penalty.
“Kansas, Duke or North Carolina, they always had the best facilities,” said Pitino, who led a blue blood in Kentucky to a national championship in 1996.
“Facilities are probably fourth or fifth on the list.
I think for Duke, back in the day, if you wanted the best education and the best basketball, Duke has got to be one, two on your list.
Probably the players they're recruiting right now don't stay more than one or two years.
“All that's gone now,” Pitino said.
“We are an offshoot of professional basketball.”
Since Pitino’s hiring in 2023, St.
John’s has built its rosters primarily through the transfer portal.
Backed by billionaire booster Mike Repole — a St.
John’s alum — the Johnnies have landed coveted transfers such as Kadary Richmond, Bryce Hopkins and Ian Jackson in recent seasons.
Many touted the Red Storm’s 2025 transfer class as the best in the country.
That group helped St.
John’s win its second consecutive Big East regular-season and conference-tournament championships, despite returning only one starter in Zuby Ejiofor, who transferred from Kansas in 2023.
“Nowadays, I think tradition, history, it doesn't mean as much as it did to recruits, whether they're [from the] portal or high-school players,” said UConn head coach Dan Hurley, who led the Huskies to back-to-back national championships in 2023-24.
“I think first and foremost right now, it's about the overall commitment that you're going to make, whether that's NIL, the way you travel, the quality of your facilities.
You can't get by on your brand anymore.”
Hurley added, “You have as good a chance to win at a non-blue blood, maybe even a better chance, because you don't have the pressure and the expectations or the burden of the jersey or the logo.”
Pitino's comments came ahead of a Cinderella-free Sweet 16 that, for the second year in a row, featured exclusively high-major teams.
That said, Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina were among the traditional top powers that did not advance beyond the NCAA Tournament's first weekend this year.
“I love Rick, but I don't agree with [him],” said Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo.
“I think a blue blood is somebody that's earned it over time.
What I've always looked for is consistency.
If you can be consistent not over two years, four years, but 10 years, 15 years, I think you have the right to feel like that's the difference.
“Now, we know with the changing environment and everything, it's going to be harder to sustain that.
To me, Kentucky and Duke, Kansas, had earned that over years and years and years.”
Even in the changing landscape, historical juggernauts such as Duke and Kansas have continued to recruit out of the high-school ranks.
Kansas’ Darryn Peterson and Duke’s Cameron Boozer — potentially the top two picks in this year’s historically deep NBA draft — are both freshmen.
So are North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson, who is likely to be a top-five pick, and UConn’s Braylon Mullins, a potential lottery selection.
“Part of the reason we played the schedule we did this year, I think you want to be in big-time environments where the games matter that you play,” said Duke head coach Jon Scheyer, whose team's non-conference slate was among the sport's most difficult.
“You look at the amount of TV games, the ratings that we've had this season, last season.
You get a chance to show your skill to millions of people.
I think that matters, right?
I think it matters, the environment that you're in, when you go to college to develop.”
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100%flagged-word coverageDan Hurley
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