NCAA men’s tournament: Rick Pitino’s case for best men’s college basketball coach ever

This St. John’s workforce cannot shoot.

The Red Storm are 182nd nationally in discipline objective share (45.2) and 225th from 3-point vary (33.2).

It would not appear to matter. Rick Pitino’s workforce (30-6) has been opportunistic, bodily and fearless in reaching the Sweet 16, the place it can play Duke on Friday.

It is paying homage to Pitino’s 2012-13 Louisville workforce that shot simply 33.3% from behind the arc (216th nationally) but gained the nationwide title. It’s a far cry, nonetheless, from his underdog 1987 Providence workforce, which reached the Final Four because of his then-revolutionary thought of ​​prioritizing the newly created 3-pointer. Those Friars hit 42.2% of them.

Pitino can win a technique, or the opposite, or again once more; from the Camelot of Kentucky to the late-career rehab of Iona College.

The years change, the groups change. The gamers, model of play, guidelines, roster development, and even the cuts of his neatly tailor-made fits change.

One factor stays fixed.

Pitino wins.

The case for Rick Pitino as the best college basketball coach of all time takes some contorting, however annually he good points credence. The 73-year-old coached his first sport 50 years in the past, in 1976 as an interim at Hawai’i. He now seems higher than ever.

Pitino’s 915 victories, .743 profitable share and two nationwide titles won’t ever examine numerically to, say, Mike Krzyzewski’s 1,202 victories, Adolph Rupp’s .822 win share or John Wooden’s 10 championships.

Part of that’s by alternative — Pitino spent eight seasons within the NBA, together with six as head coach in New York and Boston. He additionally had numerous NCAA and private scandals that made him a short lived pariah and, to some, completely ruined his popularity.

His legacy will all the time be linked to scandal. He had that Louisville nationwide title, together with 123 victories, “vacated” by the NCAA because of its investigation into allegations {that a} staffer offered escorts at on-campus events for gamers and recruits. The program was additionally on the middle of a federal fraud and bribery case involving Adidas.

For a stretch, he was primarily professionally exiled to Greece, the place he coached professional ball for two seasons, profitable a few titles there, too.

Outside the strains, Pitino is one factor. Inside them, although, is a special story. Had he simply stayed at Kentucky in 1997 fairly than soar to the Celtics — and saved his enterprise so as (maybe unlikely) — there is no such thing as a telling what his profession totals could be. UK was rolling, in any case, profitable one other nationwide title below Tubby Smith the season after Pitino left.

But he has all the time bounced round, rescuing six bottomed-out applications (Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona and St. John’s). In the season earlier than his arrival, these groups had been a mixed 76-105 (.419).

It would not matter.

He led 5 of them again to the NCAA match inside two seasons (or in UK’s state of affairs, when a match ban concluded). At BU, it took 4.

This is not to punish different nice coaches who constructed nationwide powers after which caught with it. Maintaining a juggernaut is not easy and deserves credit score. Yet, Pitino has confirmed it was him, not the establishment, that made the distinction.

Pitino has had gifted gamers (particularly the 1996 Kentucky nationwide champions), however he has coached simply three future NBA All-Stars — Donovan Mitchell, Jamal Mashburn and Antoine Walker.

This is not as spectacular as Bob Knight, who gained 902 video games and three titles regardless of having only one participant who would turn into an NBA all-star (Isiah Thomas), nevertheless it’s additionally not the Hall of Fame parade that Dean Smith (UNC), Krzyzewski (Duke) or Wooden (UCLA) had.

Pitino, a former New York level guard, is about basketball. He nonetheless conducts one-on-one growth exercises. He nonetheless grinds sport footage. He nonetheless finds the best way to maximise what he has — typically with a full-court press, typically the previous 2-3 zone he discovered as an assistant below Jim Boeheim.

He nonetheless communicates, harshly however truthfully, in a means, for instance, that not solely empowers present guard Dylan Darling to confidently name for the ball within the waning seconds of Sunday’s victory over Kansas, however permits Pitino to belief “Church Bells” — a nickname stemming from Pitino’s description of Darling’s, uh, fearlessness — to tug it off, even along with his off hand.

Pitino’s profession has bridged a number of eras; not simply in model of play (he coached pre-shot clock and 3-point line), however model of pay. As an assistant at Hawai’i within the mid-Nineteen Seventies, the NCAA dinged him for giving gamers coupons to McDonald’s. Now, they’ll personal a franchise.

Some of his best work has come lately.

He returned from his Greek purgatory to steer low-major Iona to 2 NCAAs in three seasons. At age 70, he took over St. John’s, and gained consecutive Big East regular-season and match titles. Now, the Red Storm are within the Sweet 16 for the primary time this century.

The gamers are nonetheless listening. They nonetheless defend. They nonetheless hustle. They nonetheless imagine.

They nonetheless win, even once they cannot shoot all that properly.

That’s a pure college basketball coach, maybe the best there has ever been.