Division II Pace stuns Rick Pitino-led St. John's, 63-59, in exhibition - ESPN

In March, St. John's hired coach Rick Pitino to reboot its program.

After the Red Storm's 63-59 exhibition loss to Pace University, a Division II school, it's clear those ambitions are still a work in progress.

On Sunday, St. John's, which was picked to finish fifth in the Big East's preseason poll, connected on only 26% of its field goal attempts and finished 6-for-34 from the field in the second half of the loss at Carnesecca Arena, just 15 miles from Pace's campus in Queens, N.Y.

The Pace Setters were picked to finish sixth in the Division II Northeast-10 Conference's preseason poll.

«I'm sure there are people in our league who put in their votes in the preseason poll and now they're going, 'Oh crap, maybe we ranked these guys too low,'» Pace head coach Matt Healing told ESPN on Sunday. «We've had a couple of really good years in a row. We did graduate quite a bit. So maybe people were sleeping on us a little bit too much.»

Healing said Pitino added the exhibition against Pace — the loss followed St. John's 89-78 charity exhibition win over Rutgers on Oct. 21 — to his schedule after he was hired in March. Healing knew members of Pitino's staff and pushed for the matchup.

St. John's paid Pace, which led wire-to-wire on Sunday, $5,000 for the matchup, according to Healing.

«For us Division II programs, every little bit helps,» he said.

Although St. John's did not have standouts Joel Soriano (15.2 points per game last season) and Jordan Dingle (23.4 points per game at Penn last season) for Sunday's game, it was still a stunning result for the Red Storm, who fired Mike Anderson and replaced him with Pitino.

Chris Ledlum, who averaged 18.8 points at Harvard last season, finished 2-for-14 in the loss to Pace. Daniss