Rick Pitino’s vision for freshman Simeon Wilcher has not changed despite his lack of playing time.
The freshman guard remains a pivotal part of the St. John’s coach’s plans moving forward.
“He’s a very talented young man, and he’s the future of our program,” Pitino told The Post in an exclusive interview Tuesday. “Sim is all-in with St. John’s, and I’m all-in on Sim.”
A top-40, four-star recruit coming out of Roselle Catholic (N.J.), the 6-foot-4 Wilcher has not made the impact many anticipated. In 22 games and two starts, he is averaging 2.4 points and 1.1 assists in 9.4 minutes. Wilcher didn’t play in Sunday’s loss to Seton Hall or in the second half of the prior game against Providence.
Pitino has opted against using Wilcher off the ball, as he did earlier in the season, because he believes it is asking too much of him to learn multiple positions at the same time.
The Hall of Fame coach, however, has seen progress from him in practice and plans to play him behind starting point guard Daniss Jenkins on Wednesday against Georgetown.
“The only reason he hasn’t played more is he’s learning behind a great point guard, and I think that’s going to bode extremely well for him going against Daniss Jenkins every single day,” Pitino said. “He could’ve gone to another program and averaged 10, 12 points a game and not learned as much. I think this is an awesome learning experience going head-to-head with [Jenkins] every day. It’s making him better. He’s terrific, he’s our future and I’m very bullish on him. … I think Sim has gotten a great deal better.”
St. John’s roster will be very different next year. Four of the five starters — Joel Soriano, Chris Ledlum, Jenkins and Jordan Dingle — are out of eligibility, along with top reserve guard Nahiem Alleyne.
Wilcher is one player that St. John’s plans to build around, along with fellow freshman Brady Dunlap and sophomores RJ Luis Jr. and Zuby Ejiofor.
“He’s maturing emotionally, he’s maturing defensively, he’s very much similar to [Jenkins],” Pitino said of Wilcher. “My first year with ‘D.J.’ when I first got him [at Iona], I wouldn’t have said he’s a point guard. He had so much to learn about running a pick-and-roll, he had so much to learn about defending a pick-and-roll. And during the year he learned all of that. And Sim is the same way.
“Like D.J., he’s a combo player that has to learn how to set up other people to run a team, and he’s learning all that this year.”