This all actually began for Rick Pitino, in all crucial methods, in Windfall. Now it’s the place he and his St. John’s group play their first spherical recreation on Thursday in another NCAA Match for Pitino, after what looks like 100 of them in his basketball life already.
Right here is one thing Pitino stated to Kevin McNamara within the Boston Globe the opposite day of his Windfall expertise, and his group’s nice basketball journey in March of 1987: “I learned [there] to never stop dreaming.”
Now, in fact, he has a lot greater goals for St. John’s.
He had already coached as an assistant at Syracuse and at Boston College after which as an assistant with the Knicks earlier than he acquired to Windfall School. However that Windfall group put him up on the map as greater than a scorching child. Led by Billy Donovan, who went on to win a few nationwide championships as a coach at Florida, all of them acquired scorching in March and didn’t lose till the Syracuse recreation within the nationwide semifinals. It was additionally an NCAA Match that started with tragedy for Pitino and his spouse, Joanne, with the loss of life of their 6-month-old son, Daniel.
However maybe Pitino’s profession doesn’t occur precisely the way in which it did with out some March Insanity within the second spherical that 12 months, in opposition to Austin Peay. It was 82-82 with two seconds left, and an Austin Peay man named Bob Thomas had a one-and-one which may have received the sport if he’d solely made the primary free throw. He didn’t. The sport went to additional time. Windfall received and saved profitable and when the match was over, Pitino turned the brand new coach of the Knicks.
“I wouldn’t have been coach of the Knicks if it wasn’t for that Providence team,” he stated, talking of Donovan and Delray Brooks and the remainder of the gamers who just about shocked the faculty basketball world that spring.
A number of years later, after Pitino had left the Knicks to take the Kentucky job, Pitino’s group misplaced one of many heartbreak video games in faculty historical past, in opposition to Duke, within the Japanese Regional finals in Philly, when Grant Hill threw it the size of the courtroom to Christian Laettner with 1.2 seconds left and, properly, you already know.
Pitino would ultimately win a nationwide championship there and one other at Louisville (the final, in 2013, vacated by the NCAA due to a intercourse scandal involving gamers and recruits) and go away Louisville due to one other recruiting scandal for which Pitino has at all times denied being complicit however stated a number of years in the past that, as the pinnacle of this system, “I deserved to be fired.”
Rick Pitino has been via lots. He has additionally been one of many good faculty coaches of all time, and now he’s about to start out one other NCAA Match with a St. John’s group that made the type of run via the Large East season and thru the Large East Match that his underdog Windfall group made via the match practically 40 years in the past. It has been some outstanding basketball life, with good and unhealthy and a lot profitable. However in so some ways, and no matter occurs in Windfall and — hopefully for St. John’s — past, what has occurred this season should really feel like the perfect of it for him, whether or not he by some means takes a 3rd program to a Ultimate 4 or not.
“I learned [at Providence] that anything is possible,” Pitino stated.
That is his second 12 months at St. John’s, in fact, after returning to school basketball at Iona after a training exile in Greece. His first St. John’s group in all probability ought to have made the ’24 match however didn’t. This group was anticipated to be good, however you surprise if even Pitino thought it could be this good. And since it’s this good as a No. 2 seed and regardless of how powerful the West Area is, Pitino is as huge a narrative as his group, and once more seems like as huge a man in faculty basketball teaching as there’s.
He’s again in play. If St. John’s will get previous Omaha within the first spherical, the Pink Storm will both get Kansas within the second spherical, or Pitino’s previous buddy (properly, now) John Calipari and Arkansas within the second spherical. At which level, the lights shall be turned up a lot brighter than they already are on Pitino’s New York group.
You probably have watched the season play out, on tv or in Carnesecca Area or to packed homes on the Backyard, you already know why Pitino’s group, enjoying Pitino ball, is so interesting. On protection, they decide up the opposite group as quickly because it will get off the bus, they usually share the ball, and scrap, and — very like Pitino’s final nice Louisville group — they don’t must pour in 3’s on the opposite group to beat you. And so they come again.
And there he’s on the sidelines, so usually in a crouch together with his arms clasped behind him, sporting tailor-made fits in a time when most coaches present up in warmups, watching this group play the way in which he needs it to play, calls for that it play. Or else. There aren’t any Cooper Flagg’s on St. John’s, however there are all these tough-minded and gifted gamers a lot enjoyable to observe, RJ Luis Jr. and Zuby Ejiofor and Kadary Richmond and Deivon Smith, who powered via the Large East Match with a shoulder damage.
Is Florida loaded, if Pitino’s guys make it that far? Yeah, Florida seems loaded, and is enjoying in addition to anyone. Can St. John’s win this area and make it to what can be Pitino’s eighth Ultimate 4. Completely they’ll. At this level within the season, the one one which issues, they’re as powerful an out as there’s.
All of it begins on Thursday, In Windfall. The place it actually all started for Rick Pitino. It looks as if an ideal place, in one other March, to start one other run.
Initially Revealed: March 18, 2025 at 1:00 PM EDT
