The Hall of Fame coach, who is one day foaming for the one-year anniversary of the appointment of Rick Pitino of Iona, led the Gaels to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Iona defeated Fairfield 60-51 in the MAAC title game Saturday in Atlantic City, NJ, concluding the first half on a 10-0 run. They extended the lead in the second half to as many as 16 points, led by the senior backs of Asante Gist (18 points) and Isaiah Ross (13 points).
This is the program’s fifth NCAA tournament in the last six seasons.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, Pitino becomes the third coach in the history of university basketball to lead five different teams to the NCAA Tournament. He joins Lon Kruger and Tubby Smith. He also leads Louisville, Kentucky, Providence and Boston University to the NCAA Tournament.
“I’m very happy to be with Iona,” Pitino said in his availability after the game. “When you grew up in New York, I grew up on 26th Street, east of Manhattan. I lived in Queens, lived in Long Island, lived in Westchester when I was the Knick coach. I’m strong in New York. through and it means a lot to be with Iona. ‘
Iona received a 9th place in the MAAC tournament, even though the Gaels were third in the conference standings. But the league chose to use wins instead of a percentage of the wins to sow the conference tournament, meaning Iona – who had several COVID-19-related breaks throughout the season – relegated to the 9-seeded after finishing 6-3 in the conference. .
Iona struggled last season after former head coach Tim Cluess took leave due to health issues. The Gaels finished 12-17 and 9-11 overall in the league a year ago. Pitino sent Ross and Gist back to New Rochelle, but he knew he needed to add reinforcements to get the team back into the title fight immediately. So he reached the transfer market for starting winger Berrick JeanLouis and also added some high school recruits who were still available last spring, most notably forward Nelly Junior Joseph.
The Gaels started 5-3 during the first month of the season and then did not play a single game between 23 December and 12 February due to COVID-19 problems. After five matches, the program had to go on a COVID-19 break again at the end of February and announced that it would sit down to the MAAC tournament.
Despite falling behind after the 9-seed, Iona won four matches in five days – including an upset of Siena and regular season champion Siena in the quarter-finals – to earn the league’s automatic bid.
“It’s remarkable to me to win four games because of COVID break and to do these things,” Pitino said. “We are excited to be in the tournament, we have not played that many games yet, and we are getting better with every game we play.”
Pitino is considered one of the best coaches in the history of college basketball. He has now won 13 conference championships – with eight titles in the regular season, seven Final Four games and national championships with both Kentucky and Louisville, with the latter title released due to NCAA issues.
Pitino was hired on March 14 last year, his first college coaching job since October 2017, when Louisville fired him following the FBI investigation into university basketball. The Cardinals are linked to the investigation through allegations of adidas payments to the family of five-star prospective Brian Bowen. Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich were placed on unpaid administrative leave and eventually fired for the case.
Pitino went overseas for several seasons to coach the Greek club team Panathinaikos, but was regularly linked with public positions. When Cluess officially retired for health reasons, Pitino was given the opportunity to go home to New York and coach the Gaels.
‘There were so many things off the lines [more] important as between the lines, “Pitino told ESPN the day he was appointed.” I’m so passionate about the game that I went halfway around the world to coach in Greece. I missed my family; no one was there. If I were going to coach in college basketball, it would cater to my needs.
“I knew it was the right pace. It’s 30 minutes from my New York City apartment, it’s ten minutes from my son in Harrison, New York. It’s ten minutes from a golf club I belonged to, Winged Foot.a great tradition, the coach in front of me did an amazing job.So many small Catholic schools [have had success]. Gonzaga, Dayton. Iona has the chance to build on what Tim Cluess did. ‘
While other schools continued to bring Pitino back to college, Iona president Seamus Carey and athletic director Matt Glovaski took a chance – and it paid off.
“For us, it’s about focusing on big research,” Glovaski told ESPN at the time. “We focus on making sure we are in the same team, and we continue to move forward. Rick’s values are consistent with the goals and values for the college. He was the right leader at the right time in his life for this job. ‘
After Saturday’s victory, Pitino praised Cluess.
“No one has done a better job than Tim Cluess. It’s clear I would not be here if he did not have health issues because he was one of the top coaches in the country,” he said. “Tim, wherever you are, we’ve sharing it with you tonight. You’re part of our program.”