The last time Rick Pitino opposed his son Richard, the elder Pitino earned his 900th on-court win as St. John’s beat Xavier on Jan. 24.

Sixteen days later, Rick Pitino will be seeking another milestone at his son’s expense — as well as another opportunity to prove St. John’s is back not only as a title contender in the Big East but as a candidate to play deep into March.

St. John’s will look to continue surging Monday night, when the No. 22 Red Storm hosts Xavier at Madison Square Garden.

St. John’s earned its ninth straight win Friday night, when the host Red Storm snapped No. 3 UConn’s 18-game winning streak with an 81-72 victory.

Xavier hasn’t played since last Tuesday, when the visiting Musketeers fell to UConn, 92-60.

St John’s win Friday was the 903rd on-court win for Pitino, which ties him for third all-time in Division I with former Kansas and North Carolina coach Roy Williams. The NCAA recognizes him with 780 wins after Pitino was stripped of 123 victories due to violations at Louisville.

Mike Krzyzewski (1,202 wins) and Jim Boeheim (1,116 wins) are the only coaches with more on-court victories than Pitino and Williams.

Few of Pitino’s regular-season wins have been as energetic as Friday’s victory, when St. John’s (18-5 overall, 11-1 Big East) led by as many as 11 in the second half before holding off a UConn rally. The Huskies got within one or two points on four occasions, but the Red Storm scored on the subsequent possession every time.

Dylan Darling’s 3-pointer with 3:13 left extended the Red Storm’s lead to 72-67 and sparked a game-ending 12-5 run in front of a frenzied sellout crowd of 19,812 at Madison Square Garden.

“I use the expression ‘no fear of failure.’ I said it every single time out,” Rick Pitino said. “I said, whether we go up 12, they cut it to two — we have no fear.

“Every single player was honed in. They did a fabulous job of doing things down the stretch to help you win.”

The victory was the first for St. John’s over an opponent ranked in the top five since a 70-59 win over no. 3 Villanova on Feb. 3, 2021. The Red Storm pulled within a half-game of UConn (22-2, 12-1) with a rematch looming in Hartford on Feb. 25.

St. John’s dethroned UConn as the Big East regular season and tournament champion last year, when the Red Storm’s bid to appear in the Sweet 16 for the first time this century ended with a second-round loss to Arkansas.

“It was a meaningful game,” said St. John’s forward Zuby Ejiofor, who led the Red Storm with 21 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists, and three blocks on Friday night. “We knew exactly what we were playing for.”

Richard Pitino is looking further ahead than his dad as he rebuilds during his first year at Xavier (12-11 overall, 4-8), which is in a three-way tie for seventh place with Butler and DePaul.

Last year, the Musketeers made the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years under Sean Miller but lost all but two players off the roster after Miller departed for Texas.

The loss to UConn marked the fourth time Xavier has lost a Big East game by at least 20 points. The Musketeers are also 2-4 in games decided by six points or fewer — including the 88-83 loss to St. John’s in which the Red Storm overcame a 16-point second-half deficit.

Three of Xavier’s four leading scorers — Tre Carroll, Roddie Anderson III, and Malik Messina-Moore — are seniors, though starters Jovan Milicevic and All Wright are both sophomores.

“In year one, when you’re starting from scratch, you want to win every game, but you don’t get consumed with that part of it — especially when you’re playing a UConn,” Richard Pitino said last Tuesday. “This is years and years in the making for UConn to build this type of program. I’m very, very confident we can get there.”

–Field Level Media

The Golden State Warriors upgraded guard Pat Spencer from a two-way contract to a standard NBA contract for the remainder of the season as they square away their roster following this week’s trade deadline.

Spencer, 29, made his fifth start of the season during Thursday’s 101-97 road victory over the Phoenix Suns and contributed a career-high 20 points with six rebounds. He has averaged 5.8 points and 2.2 rebounds in 36 games (five starts) for Golden State this season.

Spencer played one season in Europe and four seasons in the G League after he went undrafted out of Northwestern. In parts of the past three seasons with the Warriors, he has averaged 3.8 points and 1.6 rebounds in 81 games (five starts).

–Field Level Media

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Britain’s Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat beat Canada before ending the United States’ unbeaten run to clinch their place in the mixed doubles curling semi-finals at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Saturday.

Mouat and Dodds, who were world champions in 2021 and finished in fourth place at the Beijing Olympics in 2022, sit atop the round-robin standings after winning their first seven games in the competition.

They can no longer be caught by Canada or Switzerland, who are joint-fifth.

The British pair sealed a hard-fought win over Canada’s Brett Gallant and Jocelyn Peterman in the morning session, before returning to the ice and beating Americans Korey Dropkin and Cory Thiesse 6-4.

“It’s always a nice feeling to know you’re qualified, but we want to still continue to play well,” Dodds said.

“And today, those two games were definitely our A performances out there and we’ll need to continue that. So we’ll continue that into tomorrow and hopefully we can secure a top spot.”

It was a disappointing day for the U.S. pair. After entering the day as one of two remaining unbeatens with a 4-0 record, they also took a 6-5 defeat to South Korea’s

Jeong Yeong-seok and Kim Seon-yeong.

ITALY BEAT NORWAY, AGAIN

In the evening session, champions Italy beat two-time Olympic medalists Magnus Nedregotten and Kristin Skaslien of Norway 6-5 in a rematch of the final in Beijing four years ago.

In a close encounter, both teams appeared to struggle to get a read of the ice, with Norway’s Nedregotten miscalculating a shot in the final end which enabled Italy’s Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner to set up a steal and nab the win.

“Sometimes it’s the way the game needs to go, a couple of times we have been unlucky, and this time we were lucky, it’s always 50-50,” Mosaner said.

“Today we had some luck and we take it, to win a championship we need it.”

Italy’s win moves them up to joint-second in the standings, with Norway in joint-seventh.

Earlier on Saturday, Sweden’s Isabella and Rasmus Wranaa clinched a 9-4 win over Italy to boost their hopes of a top-four finish.

The Czech pairing of Julie Zelingrova and Vit Chabicovsky beat South Korea 9-4 to pick up their first win of the tournament.

Teams play nine times in the round-robin stage at the Cortina Olympic Curling Centre, with the semi-finals taking place on Monday and the medal matches scheduled for Tuesday.

–Reuters, special to Field Level Media