Pitino Honored As USBWA National Coach of the Year

 

Rick Pitino during a timeout on November 30 at Carnesecca Arena. Photo by Jason Schott.

On Thursday morning, ahead of the start of the NCAA Tournament, St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino was named the U.S. Basketball Writers' Association (USBWA) Henry Iba National Coach of the Year winner.

Like a lot of the accolades Pitino has racked up this season, he becomes the second St. John's coach to win this award, after Lou Carnesecca won it in 1983 and 1985.

Pitino was also named the Big East Coach of the Year after he led the Red Storm to a Big East Regular Season Championship, the only St. John's Coach besides Carnesecca to do so. It was St. John's first outright Big East regular season crown since 1985.

The Red Storm then went on to win the Big East Tournament for the first time since 2000 when they beat Xavier, Marquette, and Creighton last week at Madison Square Garden by an average of 17.7 points per game - highest by a Big East champion since Villanova's 19.0 in 2017.

They also have won 30 games for the first time since Carnesecca's St. John's team won 31 in 1986. St. John's is currently 30-4, and their four losses are by a combined seven points, the lowest margin for defeats by an NCAA Division I program with four or more losses since 1938.

Pitino will be honored at the USBWA Awards Dinner on April 17 at the Missouri Athletic Club in St. Louis.

St. John's is the No. 2 seed in the West region, and their opening game is against No. 15 Omaha on Thursday night at 9:45 p.m. in Providence. 

This season continued a remarkable pattern throughout Pitino's career where his teams take a massive leap in his second year at the helm. He has a .771 winning percentage and has won four regular season championships in his second year - Boston University, Kentucky, Iona, and now, St. John's.

Pitino took over a St. John's program that had not made the NCAA Tournament since 2019, and spiraled in the following four years before he was hired in April 2023.

The impact Pitino had was felt immediately, as he led St. John's to a 20-win campaign last season. They made their first appearance in a Big East semifinals since the 2000 season, where they took UConn to the limit in a 95-90 loss that arguably the toughest game for the eventual National Champions. St. John's came up just short of an NCAA Tournament bid.

St. John's brought back five players from that team, including RJ Luis Jr. and Zuby Ejiofor, who are both on the All-Big East First Team, and brought in eight newcomers, including transfer Kadary Richmond, who made the All-Big East Second Team. 

Luis Jr. became the fifth player to win a conference's Most Valuable Player Award under Pitino, and the first in the Big East. Three of the other four were from Pitino's time at Kentucky - Jamal Mashburn (1993), Tony Delk (1996), and Ron Mercer (1997) - and from his time at Iona, Walter Clayton Jr., in 2022.