Rick Pitino is one of the last legends standing.
Over the past few years, several college basketball coaching giants have left the game. Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams retired. Jim Boeheim and Bob Huggins are gone. The days of the all-powerful superstar coach are fading. There are a precious few luminaries who are immediately recognizable to casual sports fans: Kansas’ Bill Self, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, and Pitino. That might be the list.
Put Pitino, 71, in his own category. There has never been anyone with his career arc. He’s the only coach to win a national championship at two Division I schools (Kentucky 1996 and Louisville 2013). He also infamously is the only coach to have an NCAA title vacated. And even though he was exonerated for the pay-for-play scandal that broke in 2017, the stain of the allegations remains.
It cost him his job at Louisville. It cost him his reputation. In recent years, Pitino has worked to rewrite the narrative. First, by making Iona relevant. Now, he’s taking on what could be his final stop.
Pitino has already made St. John’s matter in a way the once-proud program hasn’t in decades. You didn’t see the kind of national media attention with previous coaches such as Mike Anderson, Chris Mullin, Steve Lavin, Norm Roberts, etc. Pitino is the biggest man on the Queens campus since Lou Carnesecca in the late 80s and early 90s. If the New York native can turn the Red Storm into a Final Four contender, it will be another laudable achievement of his Hall of Fame career.
Pitino is not ready for retirement. You could make a case that no coach in America is hungrier to win now.
“I had lunch with him for a story I did for The Athletic (in 2018),” said Seth Davis, now the Senior Basketball Insider for The Messenger. “He insisted that he would never coach in college again. Of course, two years later, he was at Iona. He can’t help himself. They’re not getting Rocking Chair Rick at St. John’s. This dude is getting after it, and he has a good team.”
As expected, Pitino has completely reshaped the roster from a squad that went 18-15. He has brought in 11 new players, 10 from the transfer portal. And while many are quick to compare this to Deion Sanders’s Colorado football transformation, turnover in college basketball under a new coach is more common and less complex. There are a maximum of 13 scholarship players in men’s basketball compared to 85 in football.
Pitino’s biggest addition might be Penn transfer guard Jordan Dingle. The 2023 Ivy League Player of the Year was the nation’s second-leading scorer (23.4 points per game). Also, Pitino’s second-best scorer at Iona —Daniss Jenkins (15.6)— followed the coach to St. John’s. Interestingly, the lone Red Storm player to earn Big East preseason all-conference honors is the lone significant returnee. Center Joel Soriano (15.2 points, 11.9 rebounds) was a first-team All-Big East selection. He was the nation’s fourth-leading rounder.
Overall, St. John’s was picked to finish fifth in a loaded Big East. Connecticut, the defending national champion, didn’t win the league last year and isn’t even in the top two this season. Marquette is favored to repeat, followed by Creighton, UConn, and Villanova. The Red Storm has also gotten off to a rocky preseason with Sunday’s 63-59 loss to Division II Pace.
The Big East has produced three of the past seven national champs. How soon until we take St. John’s seriously as a contender? With Pitino, bet on it being sooner than later. The Red Storm open the season Tuesday at home against Stony Brook. The bigger challenge will be Nov. 13 against Michigan at Madison Square Garden.
This college basketball season is all about Pitino.
“We have a guy that’s been through it, a guy that’s lived through the moments [and] has two national championships,” Soriano, said according to Newsday. “He knows what it takes to win. I know no one is going to not listen to a guy that has that type of resume.”
