ALBANY, NY— The New York press corps was out in force for Rick Pitino’s press conference prior to the Gaels’ NCAA opening round game against UConn.
They just wanted to check the temperature as speculation whirls that Pitino will leave the private Catholic school in the MAAC for St. John’s, a stagnant Big East program looking for a savior.
Pitino has been here before. He rebuilt Providence, the Knicks, Kentucky and Louisville, taking all three college programs to the Final Four and winning a national championship.
at both schools in the Commonwealth.
St. John’s is still searching for a savior who can make them relevant again and filling the Garden on a regular basis.
Pitino has dodged all questions about his future. “You don’t get hired by the Internet,” he said. “My players, it’s not a distraction for them at all. I’ve always taken it as a compliment all the years that if someone else is interested in you, very thankful for that, but I never pay attention to it.”
And St. John’s hasn’t had many of them. In the post-Lou Carnesecca era, Norm Roberts, Steve Lavin, Chris Mullin, Mike Anderson have all been a swing and a miss.
Pitino is a Hall of Fame coach and a visionary who will succeed. After getting fired at Louisville in the wake of a federal investigation into recruiting violations, He won a Greek professional league championship at Athens Panathinaikos in 2020 when Iona took a chance on him, gambling he had cleaned up his act and could turn around a program that had gone 12-17 the previous season and lost its coach Tim Cluess, who retired for health reasons.
“There’s one common denominator in every program I’ve taken over; poor facilities, poor culture. Each coach I’ve taken over for was a great coach Tim Cluess was fabulous at Iona. The bad part about it. Iona hadn’t changed their facility since Jim Valvano.
“What I looked at what s the most dependable situation. In three years, we’ve become a university. We brought another college, Concordia College, and now it’s called Iona. The facilities, the campus, everything changed remarkedly, but the facilities are way down.
This is going to strike you crazy, but Kentucky. was awful. They didn’t have a weight room. They didn’t have — They had a dormitory, the Wildcat Lodge. But everything else was subpar. Louisville the same thing. They didn’t have a practice facility. Providence played at Alumni Hall, you should see the Providence facility today. It’s amazing.
“So, they all had bad culture, except for Iona. they didn’t have a losing culture. They had a winning culture. it’s just remarkable what Iona does, every coach along the way from V. to Pat Kennedy and Timmy Welsh, Kevin Willard, Jeff Ruland, they all won because it’s a school that builds great basketball teams from Jimmy on. It’s always been great that way. But we changed the facilities, and we changed the culture academically as well as athletically.”
It only took Pitino a year to kick start the car and get Iona into the tournament during the tail end of Covid. The Gaels have averaged 26 wins in the last two years at New Rochelle and been to two NCAA tournaments and one NIT in three years. Pitino has a roster with two players– guard Walter Clayton Jr. and Nelly Joseph Jr. — who have Big East caliber skills.
He has celebrity status in Manhattan from his time with the Knicks and should not have any problems building an NIL war chest from Johnnies’ alums on Wall St.
Big East Coaches may not want to play him, but presidents will love him when they are re-negotiating a deal with Fox.
The fact he says he wants to coach until he’s 80 doesn’t hurt either in recruiting. Unlike Patrick Ewing and Mullin, who were great players in the Big East but terrible coaches who recruits today have nothing with, Pitino has track record that spans close to
40 years. He has led five different schools he has coached in college to the tournament and has a .740 winning percentage.
He was on the cutting edge in his use of the three- point shot at Providence and Kentucky in the 80’s and 90s. And he put together a roster of seven NBA players when he coached Kentucky to the 1996 national championship.
If Pitino hadn’t been from the Blue Grass with a $50 million deal with the Boston Celtics and stayed at Kentucky, he might have become what Mike Krzyzewski did become at Duke.
Pitino has had his share of miracles in coaching, but no one is expecting him to win against UConn, except maybe former President Barack Obama, who announced his bracket and picked the Gaels to advance to the Sweet 16.
“I did tell my team that,” Pitino said. “I’ve always said President Obama was one of the most intelligent presidents we’ve ever had, and this lends credence to that. It was really always special for him to pick Iona Obviously; he didn’t see Connecticut play. But it was exciting for my guys to hear that as well.”
Enjoy the moment. Pitino will be likely introduced as the new coach at St. John’s by this time next week.
