{"id":74085,"date":"2025-12-18T03:03:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/74085\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T03:03:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:03:18","slug":"bryce-hopkins-effort-in-st-johns-big-east-opener-not-enough-for-rick-pitino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/74085\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryce Hopkins&#8217; effort in St. John&#8217;s Big East opener not enough for Rick Pitino"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rick Pitino thinks highly of Bryce Hopkins. He has often said that the Providence transfer can be one of the better players in the country if he gives maximum effort on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n<p>The St. John\u2019s coach didn\u2019t see that in Tuesday\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/16\/sports\/dylan-darling-leads-st-johns-in-big-east-opener-over-depaul\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Big East-opening, 79-66 victory over DePaul<\/a> at Carnesecca Arena. Hopkins didn\u2019t grab a single rebound in 23 minutes, committed three turnovers and scored six points on 1-for-4 shooting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s just got to pick up his effort level. A guy of his talent without a rebound, he has to pick up his energy,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cScoring can\u2019t make you do other things. That\u2019s why Zuby [Ejiofor] and Dillon Mitchell bring so many other things to the table. He\u2019s gotta learn that. He has to pick it up right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37948128\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/23-st-johns-red-storm-117465505.jpg\" alt=\"Bryce Hopkins #23 of the St. John's Red Storm drives to the basket as Kaleb Banks #1 of the DePaul Blue Demons gives chase.Bryce Hopkins #23 of the St. John's Red Storm drives to the basket as Kaleb Banks #1 of the DePaul Blue Demons gives chase\" class=\"wp-image-37948128\"  \/>Bryce Hopkins of the St. John\u2019s Red Storm drives to the basket as Kaleb Banks of the DePaul Blue Demons gives chase. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n<p>Hopkins has scored in single figures in three of the past four games and has 10 turnovers in that span.<\/p>\n<p>Joson Sanon equaled a career high with nine rebounds and added two blocks and a steal, along with 15 points. Pitino has been harping that his guards have to rebound better. Sanon has been listening. He has 14 in the past two games.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYour weekly dispatch from the No. 1 source on the Johnnies\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside St. John&#8217;s by Zach Braziller, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s made great progress,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cJoson\u2019s really gotten a lot better defensively, rebounding, he can score, he can shoot, he has he can put in on the floor, he can pass. He probably skill-wise has the most skills on the team. He can do the most things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>St. John\u2019s has now defeated DePaul eight consecutive times. \u2026 Ejiofor became the first Big East player since former Johnnie Chris Obekpa in November 2013 to have 20 blocks in a three-game span. After blocking eight shots apiece in wins over Ole Miss and Iona, Ejiofor registered four more rejections on Tuesday. \u2026 St. John\u2019s bench outscored the DePaul bench 32-4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rick Pitino thinks highly of Bryce Hopkins. He has often said that the Providence transfer can be one&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7729,3361,37391,9,24,55,54,56,3362,319,3363],"class_list":{"0":"post-74085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-big-east","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-depaul-blue-demons","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-city-news","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-rick-pitino","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-st-johns-red-storm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}