Rick Pitino sees so much untapped potential in red-hot St. John’s — but time is running out

MILWAUKEE — St. John’s has come a long way in the past six weeks, from flirting with the NCAA Tournament bubble to putting itself in position to land a protected top four seed. 

Yet, despite his No. 17 Johnnies reeling off 11 consecutive victories and rising to even in the loss column atop the league with No. 5 Connecticut, coach Rick Pitino isn’t celebrating anything. In fact, he sees plenty of room for improvement over the next month, before the start of March Madness. 

“I’ve always liked this team a lot. I think it’s the third best team I’ve had here out of three years. But I think this team has more potential than the other two,” the Hall of Fame coach told The Post ahead of Wednesday’s visit to Marquette. “This team is only about 60 or 70 percent of their potential. I think they have more growth than the other two teams. 

“I still think we can get a lot better defensively. I’ve got to get Joson [Sanon], Ian [Jackson], Oziyah [Sellers], Bryce [Hopkins] all playing better defense. Collectively as a team, we can play much better defensively. Obviously we’re running out of time. I told the team this [Monday], ‘We have to become 30, 40 percent better defensively than we’ve been,’ and they realize it. I showed them why, I showed them all of the clips. They’re totally bought into it.”