The day before the one-year anniversary of Iona’s Rick Pitino signing, the Hall of Fame coach took the Gaels to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Iona defeated Fairfield 60-51 in the MAAC title game on Saturday in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Gaels never lost and ended the first half with 10-0, giving them a 12 point advantage that they would not be close to losing. They increased the advantage to 16 points in the second half, led by the main defense of Asante Gist (18 points) and Isaiah Ross (13 points).
It is the program’s fifth participation in NCAA tournaments in the past six seasons.
Pitino becomes the third coach in college basketball history to lead five different teams for the NCAA tournament, according to the ESPN Stats & Information survey, joining Lon Kruger and Tubby Smith. He also took Louisville, Kentucky, Providence and Boston University to the NCAA tournament.
“I am delighted to be in Iona,” said Pitino in his post-game availability. “When you grew up in New York, I grew up on 26th Street, on the east side of Manhattan. I lived in Queens, lived on Long Island, lived in Westchester when I was Knick’s coach. I’m New York strong all the time and it means a lot be in Iona. “
Iona received 9 seeds in the MAAC tournament, although the Gaels finished third in the conference standings. But the league chose to use the wins instead of the winning percentage to seed the conference tournament, which means that Iona – who has had several COVID-19-related breaks throughout the season – has been relegated to 9th place after finishing 6-3 in the conference game.
Iona struggled last season after former coach Tim Cluess left because of ill health. The Gaels finished 12-17 overall and 9-11 in the league a year ago. Pitino had Ross and Gist returning to New Rochelle, but he knew he needed to add reinforcements to get the team back in the title race right away. Then he hit the transfer market for first-time winger Berrick JeanLouis and also added a few high school recruits who were still available last spring, especially starting striker Nelly Junior Joseph.
Gaels started 5-3 in the first month of the season, so they didn’t play a single game between December 23 and February 12 because of problems with COVID-19. After five games, the program had to take another break at COVID-19 in late February and announced that it was out of the MAAC tournament.
Despite falling to 9-seed, Iona won four games in five days – including a loss to 1-seed and regular season champion Siena in the quarterfinals – to win the league’s automatic bid.
“For them, winning four games after the COVID break and doing these things is remarkable for me,” said Pitino. “We are excited to be in the tournament, we haven’t played many games this year and we are improving with every game we play.”
Considered one of the best coaches in college basketball history, Pitino has won 13 conference tournament championships – with eight titles in the regular season, seven appearances in the Final Four and national championships with Kentucky and Louisville, with the last title vacant because of Problems of the NCAA.
Pitino was hired on March 14 last year, his first college coaching job since October 2017, when Louisville fired him after the FBI’s investigation of college basketball. The Cardinals were linked to the investigation through claims of Adidas payments to the family of five-star contender Brian Bowen. Pitino and sporting director Tom Jurich were placed on unpaid administrative leave and eventually fired for cause.
Pitino traveled abroad for a few seasons to coach the Greek team Panathinaikos, but was often linked to college jobs. When Cluess officially stepped down for health reasons, the opportunity for Pitino to return home to New York and train the Gaelics became available.
“There were so many things outside the lines that were [more] more important than between the lines, “Pitino told ESPN the day he was hired.” I am so passionate about the game that I went around the world to train in Greece. I missed my family; nobody was there. If I were to be a college basketball coach, it would meet my needs away from the lines.
“I knew it was the right fit. It is 30 minutes from my New York apartment, 10 minutes from my son in Harrison, New York. It is 10 minutes from a golf club I belonged to, Winged Foot. tradition, the trainer before me did an incredible job. So many small Catholic schools [have had success]. Gonzaga, Dayton. Iona has a chance to develop what Tim Cluess did. “
While other schools failed to bring Pitino back to college, Iona’s president, Seamus Carey, and sports director Matt Glovaski took a risk – and it was worth it.
“For us, it’s about focusing on big research,” Glovaski told ESPN at the time. “By focusing on making sure we were on the same team, we were building to move on. Rick’s values aligned 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.
“Nobody did a better job than Tim Cluess. Obviously I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have any health problems because he was one of the top coaches in the country,” he said. “Tim, wherever you are, we share this with you tonight. You are part of our program.”