Rick Pitino has always been the guy who turns struggling programs into contenders. Throughout his Hall of Fame career, he’s led teams to two NCAA championships, and multiple Final Four appearances, and built a reputation for fixing things faster than anyone expects. So when St. John’s hired him as head coach, fans everywhere believed he’d bring the Red Storm back to relevance.

Now, with the NCAA Tournament right around the corner, the big question remains—can Pitino work his magic again, or is this just another year of false hope?

St. John’s has never cut down the nets in early April after winning a national championship. Its best finishes were finishing as the tournament runner-up in 1952 and reaching the Final Four back in 1985. This time around? It feels different.

With the No. 2 seed in the West Region, Rick Pitino’s team has a 30-4 record, won both the Big East regular season and tournament crowns, and built themselves a defensive identity that will give them a better than 50-50 shot of going far. But doing all that and accomplishing it? That’s another thing.

ESPN’s Sean Farnham isn’t sold on St. John’s making it to the Final Four: “They are a Final Four team, however, because of their bracket, they are not, because Florida is on their side of the bracket. My concern for them has nothing to do with their defense, their toughness, or the physicality of how they play. They’re elite. They’ve won 30 games, but their shot-making is at some point in time in this NCAA tournament going to be an issue for them. I think this is going to be a problem for them. I don’t think they’ll make a run to the Final Four, mostly because they are on the same side as Florida.” And honestly? Farnham has a point.

St. John’s defense is legit, but their shooting has been a problem all season. Their three-point percentage is just 30.37%. That ranks 335th in the country. That isn’t great. Especially when they run into teams that force them to shoot from deep. Sure, they had an insane shooting night in the Big East title game against Creighton, knocking down 50% of their threes, but that hasn’t been something they’ve done consistently.

The road ahead won’t be easy. Rick Pitino’s team opens the tournament against No. 15 seed Omaha, and if they win, they’ll likely face the winner of No. 7 Kansas vs. No. 10 Arkansas. And lurking in the shadows? Florida—the team that could crush their Final Four dreams.

Can Rick Pitino prove ESPN wrong?

The West Region is loaded. No. 1 seed Florida has been dominating. No. 3 seed Texas Tech has one of the best offenses in the tournament. And the lower-seeded opponents are all dangerous. Arkansas. Drake. Colorado State. Grand Canyon. This isn’t a region where anybody is guaranteed to have an easy run.

Then there’s the coaching battle. Rick Pitino knows what it takes to win in March, but he isn’t even the lone big-name coach in this region this season. John Calipari(Arkansas), Bill Self(Kansas), and Dan Hurley(UConn) have the March experience to make this bracket that much more difficult to navigate. It’s the “Region of Death” for a reason; there’s no easy path.

We’ve seen Pitino pull a few March miracles in the past, but this would surely be his largest-scale project yet. If St. John’s continues to shoot as poorly as it did, there’s a good chance the season will end far earlier than Pitino and his players expect. But if they find their stroke at the right time? You never know.

At the moment, though, ESPN isn’t embracing the hype. They don’t have St. John’s advancing beyond Florida. Rick Pitino has made a career of proving doubters wrong — can he do it again?