By Roger Rubinroger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubinJuly 14, 2026 2:00 am
It had been a long time since Avery Brown had been anxious on a basketball court. And now the butterflies were back
Though he was raised in Connecticut, Brown had been playing in big games with the elite travel teams from the PSA Cardinals and New York Gauchos in the city since he was a youngster and against blue chippers in the New England prep school league
However, the jitters were there on Thursday, April 23, standing on the Carnesecca Arena floor to work out for St. John’s coach Rick Pitino
The 6-4 point guard had spent the previous four seasons starting for Columbia, landing in the Ivy League after his commitment to Kansas State went sideways when coach Bruce Weber was dismissed. With a medical redshirt granted after injury limited him to three games as a senior, the 23-year-old had one more year of eligibility and scheduled visits with BYU and Boston College. Then things developed fast with the Red Storm — first contact had been Tuesday — and a recruit’s on-campus workout for Pitino was known to be make-or-break.
“When I first met coach Pitino in-person, you’re hit by ‘hey, this is a legendary coach,’” Brown told Newsday in an exclusive interview. “But then I was more like ‘I have to prove to this guy what I can do.’ I didn’t know how they viewed me coming from Columbia, but they were interested enough to bring me in. I felt like I needed to prove to them that wanting [that] was not a mistake. It was: ‘[whoa], I’ve got to perform.”
Columbia was overmatched during Brown’s first three seasons. The Lions went 32-51 while he averaged 10.2 points, 2.7 assists and 2.3 rebounds. Columbia’s best victory over that span was a road win at Villanova during his junior season in which Brown had been the driving force with 18 points on 5-for-7 shooting with three assists
Recalling it, Brown said, “That game was like not just a [watershed] moment for Columbia, but for me also. It really just solidified what I think about myself and what I am capable of.”
Those capabilities were clearly evident through what became a rigorous 42-minute workout for Pitino. So intense he remembers exactly how long it was and ended with him diving on the floor and being helped up by the Hall of Fame coach
The campus visit was concluded at a conference table where Brown sat with Pitino and the coaching staff
“[Pitino] was like, ‘Avery, I want to be honest, we really want you here at St. John’s.’ That was the opening line,” Brown recalled. “At the end he said, ‘We’re going to make sure you don’t go on any other visits.’ I told him that I had a visit scheduled, but that I wanted to be here.”
Winning is the priority
The 2026-27 Red Storm has been gathering on campus this week to start summer workouts. Player roles aren’t set in stone, but there are some projections
EuroLeague point guard Quinn Ellis and junior Ian Jackson are expected to be the starting backcourt. Baylor transfer Tounde Yassoufou, a 6-5 swingman who pulled out of the NBA Draft at the deadline to commit to Pitino, is an unspoken certainty to start. Junior Ruben Prey, at 6-11, is probably the starting center and 6-8 German pro Babacar Sane the favorite for starting power forward
Brown could make the rotation as the second point guard. He is an athletic 190 pounds with a passion to defend. Storm assistant coach Taliek Brown told Newsday, “We liked his toughness, how he defends and his physicality. He’s good at getting downhill. . . . I’m excited about him.”
After St. John’s run to its first Sweet 16 since 1999, Pitino recorded a sort of season postmortem video for fans in which he said, “Our backcourt, although it had good size except for Dylan Darling, they were weak [in the] lower body and got bullied to the basket quite often. That tells us something going forward.”
When Brown initially committed to Kansas State, he envisioned big games before big crowds, high-profile wins and playing in the NCAA Tournament. St. John’s makes all that possible again
It was late in the 2022 recruiting game when Weber was let go. Relationships formed in New York and connections to the Columbia coaching staff — not to mention his strong academic profile — landed him with the Lions. But he didn’t get the original vision
“Basketball isn’t the main priority at the [Ivy League] schools and . . . not why you go to a school like Columbia,” Brown said. “Basketball is really what I want to do at the highest level possible and I just wanted to see if I could play at [it] and get an opportunity to make an impact for my team. . . . I wanted a place where I’ll be pushed to become the best player I can be and perform on the biggest stage of college basketball
“I don’t regret my time here at Columbia, but it’s one of those things: you always wonder how you would do at the highest level and playing for the biggest stakes.”
His game developed at Columbia, but so did a lot of things. Brown plays guitar and got to perform at assorted venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn. He’d started a clothing line in high school, even learned to embroider, and has participated in pop-up fashion events where he could sell his products
But it didn’t slake his thirst for big-time college basketball
“Everybody on the St. John’s roster aspires to be a professional athlete and winning is the priority,” he said. “I think only one of my Columbia teammates is in professional basketball. Everybody else is in finance or the professional [world] and that’s great because that’s what they wanted to do
“I want to be surrounded by [teammates] with the same goal as [me] and that’s the culture at St. John’s.”
Pitino’s workout
Taliek Brown was the point guard on UConn’s 2004 national championship team and so it’s no surprise that he was pivotal in the recruiting process. Conversations with longtime friend Mark Williams, Avery Brown’s trainer, put the St. John’s commit on the Storm radar
Pitino has sought experienced, athletic players as the foundation for his teams. Brown is that and Pitino liked video of his play. Associate head coach Steve Masiello made the initial contact on Tuesday and, on Thursday, Taliek Brown picked him up on West 114th Street, got him breakfast and took him to campus
Brown suited up in Red Storm practice gear for what might rank as the most important 42 minutes of his basketball career. Pitino’s workouts and individual development session are renowned as challenging. So was this
After they met, Pitino ran him through 25 minutes of breakneck shooting drills with constant movement: threes and mid-range jumpers, off the dribble or off screens. It flowed right into 15 physical minutes of one-on-one against 6-6, 215-pound senior Sadiku Ibine Ayo
“That guy is strong,” Brown said. They wanted to test my toughness. They wanted to see grit and competitiveness in going after rebounds, defending against his physicality. Seeing if I could score against [size]. . . . I thought it a good sign coach Pitino was vocal through it, but I was spent at the end.”
There was a photo shoot in a St. John’s uniform afterward and then the meeting with the coaches and finally Taliek Brown took him for a tour of the Garden, which he described as “completely awesome.”
On the court, Avery Brown said, “I told him ‘I can’t wait to get some shots up in here in front of a crowd. I think my game gets better when the lights are brighter. I think he liked that.”
Before the day was over, he’d made his commitment and canceled his other campus visits
“St. John’s is really everything I was looking for,” Brown said. “It happened fast, but I’m glad it happened. It’s everything I dreamed of as a kid. . . . This is an opportunity and I am going to make the most of it.”
By Roger Rubinroger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours
