Rick Pitino’s and St. John’s expectations from here are clear — Final Four or bust

The challenge for Rick Pitino now is identifying the kind of point guard he missed on a year ago in the portal and replacing his front line, especially Zuby Ejiofor, the heart-and-soul leader every coach craves.

St. John’s will be back because Pitino will again be a recruiting magnet for portal nomads and schoolboy phenoms with NBA ambition, and Mike Repole will be back as his moneybags sidekick.

The bright lights of Broadway have been turned on again and the big stage of Madison Square Garden is more of a lure now than it has been since the Big East Conference glory days under Lou Carnesecca.

Wherever he has gone, Pitino has been able to build programs where sustained success is the only option, and the administration and the fan base have implicit faith and trust in him to achieve it.