St. John's Pitino Wins Naismith National Coach of the Year

 

Rick Pitino in a sweater modeled after one worn by Lou Carnesecca before their game on December 7, 2024. Photo by Jason Schott.

St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino keeps bringing home the hardware, this time the 2025 Werner Ladder Naismith National Coach of the Year award on Sunday in San Antonio, site of the Final Four.

Pitino becomes the first St. John's Head Coach to ever win the award, which was established in the 1986-87 season.

In a ceremony at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, Pitino was honored alongside Naismith Player of the Year Cooper Flagg, from Duke, and the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, Creighton's Ryan Kalkbrenner.

Pitino said in a statement, "I'm truly honored to be the recipent of the  Werner Ladder Naismith National Coach of the Year award, especially with the incredible coaching of the other finalists this past season. I want to thank my players and coaches for making this possible after a historic season for St. John's Basketball. I am also grateful to the Atlanta Tipoff Club and the Naismith Awards selection committee for this prestigious honor."

This comes just two days after Pitino was honored as the 2025 Associated Press National Coach of the Year on Friday in San Antonio. Auburn Head Coach Bruce Pearl was the co-recipient of that award, as he and Pitino finished tied in the voting, the first time that has happened in the 58-year history of the award.

Pitino became the first St. John's Head Coach to win the AP award, and just the sixth in the history of the Big East Conference. The prior five honorees from the Big East are Jim Calhoun of Connecticut in 1990, Pittsburgh's Ben Howland (2002), Jim Boeheim of Syracuse (2010), Mike Brey of Notre Dame (2011), and Shaka Smart in 2023. Within those six, Boeheim and Brey's came in back-to-back-seasons and there was just one season between Smart's and Pitino.

At the NCAA Tournament commenced, Pitino, as he was most recently named the U.S. Basketball Writers' Association (USBWA) Henry Iba National Coach of the Year winner on Thursday, March 20. Like a lot of the accolades Pitino racked up this season, he became the second St. John's coach to win that 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 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.

A No. 2 seed in the West regional in the NCAA Tournament, St. John's won the opening game against Tulsa before succumbing to Arkansas in the second round. 

St. John's finished with an overall record of 31-5, the first time a Red Storm team won at least 30 games 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.