Rick Pitino was right.

The extra spotlight Saturday didn’t bother Kadary Richmond, even as Seton Hall fans inside Prudential Center booed him every time he touched the ball against his former team.

Signs from the Pirates student section taunted Richmond.

They dared the stoic guard to lose his composure with a hostile backdrop that inevitably followed his decision to bolt to the Johnnies from the Pirates.

By the time the second half arrived, though, the boos had mostly faded.

Richmond still dribbled the ball, still scored, still did everything required to finish with a stat line of 12 points, six assists and five rebounds. But at that point, St. John’s (16-3, 7-1) had already constructed a lead that topped 20.

The Johnnies were already in position to cruise to a fifth consecutive win — and an 11th across their past 12 games — with their dominant 79-51 victory and move into sole possession of first place in the Big East after Xavier upset No. 7 Marquette.

RJ Luis led St. John’s with 24 points and finished two rebounds shy of a double-double.

Zuby Ejiofor finished with 15 points and nine rebounds despite early foul trouble keeping him on the bench for a chunk of the first half.

“It was nice to come back and get a win, despite all the boos and stuff like that,” Richmond said.

When this iteration of the St. John’s roster took shape, Richmond became one of the centerpieces when he left Seton Hall for its conference rival. He’d spent three years playing for the Pirates — including two under Shaheen Holloway — and helped them crack the NCAA Tournament field in 2022, but when he made his transfer decision, he turned into a villain.

Pitino said postgame that the current landscape of college basketball and name, image and likeness isn’t a “level playing field,” implying that Richmond’s decision could’ve unfolded differently if St. John’s and Seton Hall operated with the same resources.

“Look, every one of those students and everybody in the building would’ve done the same thing he did,” Pitino said. “Believe me, if the money was the same, he would be playing for Shaheen. If the money was close, he’d be playing for Shaheen.

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“I’m hoping that revenue comes into Seton Hall and everybody basically gets the same, and then you’ll see Seton Hall just as good as any team in the league. So right now, they don’t have the revenue that most of the other teams have. Probably it’s the lowest in the league.”

When asked about Pitino’s comment, Holloway responded with “who knows” and that “certain people can talk about money and talk about things, and certain people can’t.”

But even with Saturday revolving around Richmond, the Johnnies turned the game into a defensive clinic. Seton Hall finished the first half just 13.3 percent from the field.

St. John’s, which has recently dissected film of what Pitino described as a comparable Thunder defense, paired 12 steals with nine blocks and 19 forced turnovers.

It didn’t provide any room for the Pirates to erase a 23-point halftime lead. It was, according to Pitino, a “brilliant performance of team defense.”

The Pirates trimmed the Johnnies’ lead to 15 near the midway point of the second half, but consecutive turnovers allowed that to quickly balloon back to 20. “Let’s go Johnnies” chants even broke out inside The Rock, replacing the boos that followed Richmond.

“I thought we got punked tonight,” Holloway said. “One hundred percent punked. … Like men amongst boys. We got punked. We got embarrassed.”

So Richmond aced his most difficult test of the year.

The Johnnies keep passing their conference tests, too, and even got engine Deivon Smith — with mixed results, though — back from a bruised right shoulder.

This was the vision they bought into when hiring Pitino. This was the Year 2 jump that the 72-year-old coach’s track record suggested they’d make.

To the upper tier of the conference. To the NCAA Tournament field. To a national ranking that’ll follow Monday.

And at least for one Saturday night in the middle of January, the Johnnies went back to Queens as Kings of the Big East.