Devon Smith never played for the late Amir Abdur-Rahim, the South Florida coach who died at age 43 on Oct. 24 due to complications after a medical procedure.
But Abdur-Rahim still left a lasting impression on the St. John’s goalkeeper.
He was a great person. He was a great coach. A lot of people posted about it that day, even from the Atlanta area. “He was likable,” Smith said Friday as St. John’s prepared to face Quinnipiac on Saturday at Carnesecca Arena. “He was in a lot of gyms, and he recruited a lot of the best talent in Atlanta. … He was a great guy. He was very upbeat, a great guy.”
Amir Abdur-Rahim when he coached at Kennesaw State from 2019 to 2023. Justin Casterline
Abdur-Rahim initially recruited Smith when he was an assistant coach at Georgia and Smith was a four-star recruit out of Grayson (Georgia) High School.
He almost committed to his program at South Florida in the spring of 2023, but instead chose Utah State. Abdur-Rahim led the Bulls to a surprising 25-8 record, an AAC regular season crown and an NIT appearance a year ago.
St. John’s guard Devon Smith (5) handles the ball against Rutgers during the first half at Jersey Mike’s Stadium, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. Noah K. Murray-NY Post
“I’ve been in the transfer portal a few times now, so he was always reaching out to me, helping me navigate the direction I needed to go, or giving me an honest opinion on it. [coaches] “He knew it personally,” Smith said. “Things like that, you being such a great person to me, always motivates me to stay hungry.”
Coach Rick Pitino gave his team a “C” grade for its performance against Fordham, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
“In general, the first games I rated were D-plus, so a little better than usual,” he said.
Red Storm at Carnesecca Arena – Jackie Johnson III #15 of the Fordham Rams looks for the open man during the first half. Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
One area he would like to see improvement in is St. John’s 3-point defense. Fordham shot 34.8 percent (8 of 23) from long range.
“We have to guard the three-point line better than we did,” he said. “We’re a decent shooting team. I don’t think that’s our main asset. We’re going to have some nights that are going to be great, but we definitely have to stop that, and we didn’t stop it against Fordham, and that was annoying.”
Pitino and starting center Zoby Ejiofor had a one-on-one film session on his play against Fordham in which he had just five points and one rebound in 21 minutes.
“Zobi was his own worst enemy and that’s why he had such a mediocre game,” Pitino said. “He didn’t run the floor and beat the other team’s five guys. I said, ‘Zoby, sometimes you give the other team’s defense credit for why you had an average game. But let’s look at why you had an average game. He saw that and he realized that and that’s not going to happen against Quinnipiac.’ “.
