Can Rick Pitino lead St. John’s all the way to the national championship?

Rick Pitino certain has the life. He remains to be successful massive 13 years after his induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and, higher but, he’s nonetheless dwelling beside the third inexperienced at Winged Foot Golf Club.

He known as his yard view of the iconic course a suburban New York treasure. “I never want to give that up,” Pitino mentioned.

Another factor he by no means needs to half with: his job. At 73 years previous and a grandfather to 16, Pitino is just not operating away from the NIL, play-for-pay realities of faculty basketball. He dearly loves the sport (“I eat, sleep, and drink it.”) and needs to maintain going and going, perhaps till his eightieth birthday, God keen, after all.

Three years right into a six-year contract, St. John’s needs Pitino to settle for a profitable new deal to maintain him subsequent door to Winged Foot. “They have offered me one, but I haven’t signed it yet,” Pitino mentioned. “I think it’s on the table right now and in the works but… I’m just focused on winning this tournament.”

The Big East Tournament. St. John’s gained it final yr, Pitino’s second season at the faculty, for the first time in 1 / 4 century. The Red Storm completed 2025 ranked fifth in the nation — earlier than falling to Arkansas of their second NCAA Tournament sport — and began this season at No. 5 once more, the finest preseason rating in program historical past.

Early struggles tempered expectations earlier than St. John’s gained 16 of its remaining 17 video games and repeated as regular-season champs for the first time in 4 many years. Everything revolves round massive man Zuby Ejiofor, the faculty’s first star to win the convention’s Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in the identical season. The Red Storm begins the Big East Tournament on Thursday in opposition to Providence. It’s a workforce with a reputable probability to attain the Final Four for the first time since Lou Carnesecca and Chris Mullin acquired there in 1985.

If St. John’s advances to Indianapolis in April, Pitino could be main his fourth faculty to a Final Four (Providence, Kentucky and Louisville) and training in the national semis in a fifth completely different decade (beginning with Providence in 1987). He would not suppose this 2026 workforce is as proficient as the 2025 workforce that was upset in the event, however then once more, these Red Storm usually are not missing in poise and coronary heart.

“Can we win the national championship?” Pitino mentioned. “I’m not sure our backcourt is strong enough for that. But the way (point guard) Dylan Darling is playing, everything is possible.”

It could be a hell of a factor if the basketball lifer who grew up in Manhattan, Queens, and Long Island, who signed his UMass scholarship papers on the ground of Madison Square Garden, and who as soon as coached the New York Knicks into the playoffs completed his profession by successful St. John’s’ first NCAA title. In a metropolis of championship droughts — the Jets have not gained since the 1968 season, the Knicks since 1973, the Mets since 1986, and so forth. — St. John’s final reached an NCAA remaining in 1952, six months earlier than Pitino was born.

A ticker-tape parade in his hometown in some unspecified time in the future earlier than he lastly retires? Pitino mentioned that he hasn’t given it a lot thought, that his philosophy on basketball as he is gotten older aligns with the late Jim Valvano’s method to March.

Survive and advance…from in the future to the subsequent.

But if the solely coach to win national titles at a number of colleges had been to win The Big One at a 3rd in St. John’s?

“I really don’t think in terms of winning a national championship,” Pitino mentioned. “I think in terms of building up a team to have a shot to win the national championship.

“But it’s the place I grew up in, the place I love, so it would mean everything like a New Yorker. It would be one of the great endings for anyone, never mind me. … It would be an amazing feat.”

So would 1,000 profession Division I victories, relying on how you retain rating. Pitino owns 910 on-court victories, despite the fact that the NCAA places his official complete at 787. Infractions dedicated on his watch at Louisville compelled the NCAA to vacate his 2013 national crown and, finally, value Pitino his job. Those unforced errors are there for folks to decide how they see match.

Pitino mentioned the completely different errors made with Louisville, and years earlier with the Boston Celtics, modified him over the long run. “I’m a much better coach and person because of failure,” he mentioned. After Louisville, he discovered a sanctuary with the Panathinaikos membership in Greece, the place, Pitino mentioned, “I didn’t know one person and I was coaching in countries I’d never seen before. That made me stronger and better, too.”

He landed again in the States at mid-major Iona after which at St. John’s, a barely-relevant program that Pitino described as “a mess” upon his arrival. Nobody who has watched Pitino coach is stunned that three years later, St. John’s is the reverse of that.

Pitino cannot see himself teaching at one more faculty, though he mentioned his time in Greece and the EuroLeague was so particular {that a} return there “would be a possibility if I’m being totally honest.”

And as quickly as he mentioned these phrases, Pitino stopped himself chilly and contemplated these Winged Foot views. “I don’t feel like moving again,” he mentioned by means of fun.

At St. John’s, he will get to problem himself in numerous methods by competing in opposition to his son Richard at Xavier and in opposition to Dan Hurley at UConn, winner of two of the final three national titles. Nothing is straightforward in faculty basketball at a time when Pitino believes the sport is as aggressive on the ground as he is ever seen it.

Now comes the exhausting half, inside March Madness, a spot the place you want guards to make performs and everybody to make foul photographs to have a shot at the ring.

“It can definitely be done at St. John’s,” Pitino mentioned.

“You just have to be a little lucky along the way.”