Rick Pitino has seen it all. In his long coaching career, he has dominated in the college ranks, put together solid seasons in the NBA and even served as the coach of both the Puerto Rican and Greek national teams.
He’s turned around the St. John’s Red Storm in his native New York City, as they are one of the dominant teams in the Big East Conference and among the top teams in the country.
The 72-year-old coach has had to adapt to a new era of college hoops. Program building is still part of the deal. But, so is name, image and likeness (NIL) and transfer portal. It has chased some coaches off, most recently Virginia’s Tony Bennett and Miami’s Jim Larranaga.
It hasn’t chased Pitino off. Not yet. But, as a coach that has seen it all, he has an easy comparison for this new era of college basketball as he drew parallels between the NBA and EuroLeague.
He’s experience with EuroLeague, too. After he left Louisville in 2017, he spent two years coaching there with Panathinaikos in Greece. From there, he landed back in the U.S. with Iona Gaels in 2021.
Recently, in an interview with Pardon My Take, he called what is happening now in college basketball a “carbon-copy” of what happens in EuroLeague.
“I like it because I spent 10 years in the pros, and to me, it’s almost a carbon copy of the Euroleague,” Pitino said. “The Euroleague, if you sign a player for two years, that’s a long time. So it’s really a one-year contract. You’re getting different players every year. And that’s the way it [is] with us.”
Pitino said that he feels fortunate that he’s been able to keep the recruits he’s signed in his first two classes at St. John’s. Because of that, he said he’s not even recruiting a freshman this cycle and opting to go into the transfer portal to replace three players he expects to lose once their eligibility is done. That should allow his team to maintain the standard it’s build this season.
He also said that he stays out of the money part of the equation, which allows him to coach, develop and retain talent.
“I don’t get involved in the financial negotiations of any of that,” he said. “But if we need more money, I’ll call our guy [St. John’s donor] Mike Repole and say, ‘EWe need more money.’”
Pitino is a member of the National Basketball Hall of Fame who has led two different college programs to a national championship, though his 2013 title with Louisville was vacated due to NCAA violations. He has coached in both the NCAA and the NBA, getting his first head-coaching job on an interim basis with the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors in 1976.
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