Rick Pitino Will Rejoin Big East and Become St. John’s New Head Coach

Former University of Louisville men’s basketball head coach Rick Pitino has agreed to a six-year deal to become the new coach at St. John’s University, according to an announcement from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Pete Thamel on Monday afternoon.

St. John’s finished the 2022-2023 season with an 18-15 overall record and a 7-13 conference record. They have not made the NCAA Tournament since 2019 and have not managed to reach the Sweet Sixteen since 1999. Rick Pitino, a Hall of Fame coach and New York native, will now look to help the Red Storm become annual contenders in the Big East and re-establish themselves as one of college basketball’s elite teams.

The University of Louisville parted ways with Rick Pitino in October 2017, following the “pay-for-play scandal” involving five-star recruit Brian Bowen Jr. Coach Pitino had a 416-143 overall record (including vacated wins) with the Cards from 2001-2017. He led the University of Louisville to three Final Fours (2005, 2012, and 2013) and one NCAA Tournament Championship (2013).

Pitino also won the national championship in 1996 with the University of Kentucky, and he reached the Final Four in 1987 with the Providence Friars, and in 1993 and 1997 with the Kentucky Wildcats.

Following his departure from UofL in late 2017, Rick Pitino won a Greek Cup Championship with Panathinaikos in 2019 and then went on to record a 64-22 overall record with the University of Iona, winning two Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Tournament championships in three years.

Despite an 0-2 NCAA Tournament record with Iona, he has already won 53 career tournament games as a head coach. Pitino is also the only NCAA Division I basketball coach to win a national championship with two different programs and take three different schools to the Final Four.

Rick Pitino will now rejoin the Big East Conference, where he won three conference tournament championships and two regular season championships with the Louisville men’s basketball team. Pitino’s announcement came just a few hours after the Big East’s Georgetown Hoyas hired Providence’s Ed Cooley as their new head coach.

The 70-year-old Pitino sent a few final goodbye messages via Twitter to the University of Iona, their athletic director, and all of the team’s players.