Rick Pitino maintains he made the correct decision to bench St. John's player RJ Luis in their NCAA Tournament loss to Arkansas. This is revealed in an exclusive clip from the Vice TV docuseries, “Pitino: Red Storm Rising.”
Pitino draws a parallel to a past strategic decision in his career, acknowledging that he would have made a different call in a 1992 game against Duke. He asserts with absolute certainty that benching Luis in the recent game was the right move.
The final episode of the docuseries will delve deeper into the reasoning behind the controversial decision, which garnered significant national media attention.
Rick Pitino isn’t second-guessing his decision to bench RJ Luis at the end of St. John’s season-ending NCAA Tournament loss to Arkansas in the second round.
In an exclusive clip obtained by The Post of the final episode of the Vice TV docuseries, “Pitino: Red Storm Rising,” Pitino says he made the right call.
“Looking back on my career, I’ve made some good timeouts, some good moves. Not putting a guy on the ball [in the 1992 Elite Eight game against Duke and] Christian Laettner, in hindsight seeing what happened, I would’ve put a guy on the ball,” the Hall of Fame coach said. “100 percent the right decision not playing RJ Luis in that game — 100 percent.”
The final episode will feature Pitino going more in-depth into the decision to sit Luis. The benching drew national headlines for days.
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