Power of Rick Pitino is back on full display for St. John’s — and just in time

He has been at this for a long time, for a very long time, and if you go back to either of his stops at the Kentucky schools with Rick Pitino, or to Providence, or even all the way back to Boston University, then you know them the way Mike McD spotted Teddy KGB’s proclivity for Oreos in “Rounders.”

Teddy would split his cookies and admire them when he had rags in his hand and was trying to bluff a pot. If he had a made hand, he snarfed them down, one after the other. It took a while, but McD spotted it. It saved the day. And also, probably his life.

The stakes aren’t quite so grave for St. John’s, even if there were a number of serious faces wearing St. John’s colors before, during and after the Johnnies’ 92-68 dusting of Marquette at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night. Earlier in the day, it was revealed that the program’s GM, Matt Abdelmassih, had been dismissed, reportedly after the university took a close look at some of Abdelmassih’s business dealings.

“Nobody asked my opinion and so I didn’t give it,” Pitino said, adding that the St. John’s administration preferred for him to focus on his own job description. “It’s not a big deal in terms of our basketball program.”