Rick Pitino belongs on the short list of all-time elite coaches. His contributions to the game of basketball at both the college and professional levels are immense and rivaled by few in the sport. His national championship runs at Kentucky and Louisville stand as convincing examples of his coaching ability and program-building expertise.

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While his legacy as a championship coach is already well established, his work at St. John’s—in an era dominated by the transfer portal and NIL—may ultimately prove to be the most impressive achievement of his career.

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Until Pitino took over the St. John’s program in 2023, much of the recent news surrounding him had been marked by scandal, downturns, and coaching stops at programs that many casual fans had barely heard of. Pitino was ousted from his position at Louisville amid allegations of illegal recruiting tied to a “pay-for-play” scheme, leading to an ugly separation and a subsequent lawsuit settlement.

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Following his departure from Louisville, Pitino spent time in the EuroLeague coaching Athens-based Panathinaikos B.C. from 2018 to 2020. He later returned to the college ranks at Iona, where he quickly restored the Gaels to NCAA Tournament contention. In doing so, Pitino became just the third coach in history to lead five different programs to the NCAA Tournament.

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When Pitino took over the St. John’s program in 2023, the program was hardly recognizable from its glory days. Since the retirement of legendary coach Lou Carnesecca in 1992, St. John’s had become wildly inconsistent, reaching the NCAA Tournament only five times in the previous 23 years—and just twice in the last 15.

After several unsuccessful coaching hires—including Hall of Fame player and alumnus Chris Mullin and longtime SEC coach Mike Anderson—St. John’s turned to Pitino with the hope that an elite builder and teacher could revive the struggling program. Pitino was walking into a full rebuild in one of the toughest conferences in college basketball: the Big East.

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In his first season, Pitino led the Red Storm to a 20-win campaign and narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament. The omission was controversial, with many observers arguing that St. John’s had been unfairly left out by the selection committee. Pitino himself called the decision “fraudulent” and chose to skip the NIT, instead focusing on building toward the following season.

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The turnaround came quickly. In 2024, St. John’s surged back into national relevance with a 31-win season, a Big East title, and a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Though the Red Storm were eliminated in the Round of 32, the program’s return to prominence was nothing short of remarkable.

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Pitino followed that success in 2025 with another Big East regular-season title, a signature win at Madison Square Garden against the UConn Huskies, and what appears likely to be another high seed in the NCAA Tournament.

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Pitino now finds himself coaching in a vastly different era than the one in which he won his first national championship at Kentucky in 1996. The modern college game—defined by the transfer portal and NIL—barely resembles the sport he once dominated. Yet the era has done little to diminish the effectiveness of Pitino’s approach.

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At his core, Pitino is still what he has always been: a teacher of the game. His demanding style and relentless attention to detail have earned both fear and admiration from his players. Former players consistently describe him as intense, exacting, and uncompromising—but also as a coach who pushes them to become better, more confident individuals. Many of them simply call him what the basketball world has long believed him to be: a basketball genius.

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In many ways, the paths of Rick Pitino and St. John’s feel almost storybook. Both were searching for a return to prominence. Both were rich with history but hungry for relevance again. And both share deep roots in New York basketball.

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The result has been one of the most compelling revivals in the sport. Madison Square Garden has rediscovered its roar, and college basketball has rediscovered something it had been missing for years: a truly relevant St. John’s program.

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For Rick Pitino—the Godfather of the game—the legacy continues to climb into rarified air.