Rick Pitino urges his St. Johns players to keep taking treys despite brutal 3-point woes

Rick Pitino made a plea to his players Friday: Let it fly. Stop worrying about your misses.Ignore the percentages.

When the 3-point shots are there, let them go. That came after St.John’s attempted a season-low nine 3-pointers — and made two of them — in its frustrating one-point loss at Creighton on New Year’s Eve. “To be quite honest with you, it defies all the metrics of the game,” the Hall of Fame coach said as the Johnnies prepared to host skidding Butler at Carnesecca Arena on Saturday afternoon.

“Winning like we’re winning is very difficult if you’re not getting the easy break of the 3-point shot.” It was a different tone than Pitino had after the setback, when he said St.John’s (11-3, 2-1) isn’t a good 3-point shooting team.

That likely isn’t going to change.The Johnnies are 224th nationally in 3-point percentage (32.8), 283rd in made 3s per game (6.6) and 295th in attempts (20.2).

In three league games, they have made a total of eight 3s. St.John’s can’t be afraid to take them when opportunities present themselves, as Pitino saw too much hesitation from his team against Creighton. CHECK OUT THE LATEST BIG EAST STANDINGS AND ST.

JOHN’S STATS“What’s bothered me a little bit is guys are counting their misses, counting their percentages and not taking them and they can make them,” he said.“RJ [Luis] being one.

RJ is passing up a lot of open 3s.He didn’t do that last year. “Aaron [Scott] hasn’t had many good looks.

Simeon [Wilcher] has to move more to get open 3s and they’re our shooters, basically, until Brady [Dunlap] comes back.” As a player, Pitino joked that if he missed four straight shots, it would only make him want to take more.In recent days, he has encouraged his players not to overthink it.

He has even told Wilcher’s father, Sergio, to hammer home the point to his son, who is St.John’s best 3-point shooter at 40.5 percent but is only averaging 2.6 attempts per game from distance.�...