Rick Pitino takes The Post inside his basketball psyche, St. Johns success: Fun is just beginning

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Rick Pitino, who has brought glory back to the St.John’s basketball program in just his second season as coach, takes a timeout for some Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.Q: What adjectives would you use to describe your team?A: Gritty … focused … relentless.Q: On a scale of 1-10: Heart.A: Ten.Q: Grit.A: Ten.Q: Poise.A: Seven.Q: Pride.A: Nine.Q: Mental toughness.A: Eight.Q: Killer instinct.A: Eight.Q: Are you happy with 8s for those last two?A: Yes.Q: Why?A: Well, 8 to me is like a A-minus.Q: Why a 7 for poise?A: Because they haven’t been together.

Four new starters, so they’re not always the most poised group.Q: What else would they need, what quality would they need to get to a Final Four?A: The way I tell them this: Teams that think about the Final Four get beat in the second round.What you have to do is what I did the other night against Marquette.

I said, “OK, this is the Sweet 16.There’s four minutes to go in the game.

We win the first round.Now if you want to get to the Sweet 16, you gotta win the next four minutes.

Let’s see what ya got.”Q: Why do you think you’re still “Passionate, Hungry and Driven”?A: I think because of adversity of not coaching … I found out what life was like not coaching.Missed it terribly.

So I’m not in any rush.… I appreciate what I have, because of learning what I didn’t have.Q: Are you still at that same “PHD” level you’ve always been?A: I think more so today than ever before.

Because St.John’s has made me more ultra-focused.Q: At the top of John Wooden’s pyramid of success is “competitive greatness.” What is your definition?A: I think that failure has to enter the equation of greatness.

I think that failure is often a good thing.We failed in the Creighton game because we didn’t do certain things, and that type of failure is fert...