When Jim Boeheim said, “He’s probably the best coach of getting the most out of players in the history of basketball,” he summed up Rick Pitino’s career. He did it with Boston. He did it with Kentucky. Louisville too. Now he’s done it with St. John’s. A team he called “not great” and “most unenjoyable” in his first year has now become his sixth different school to make it to the Big Dance. ‘Best coach’ banners might just be inches away from gracing Queens. But that title would be limited to college for one reason and Pitino would agree.

On March 15th, Rick Pitino led the Red Storm to its first-ever conference championship since 2000. Some called it the ‘Rick Pitino effect’. For others like Mike Repole and Boeheim, it was a sure chance to reinstate him as one of the greatest coaches in basketball if not the greatest. But Dan Patrick of NBC Sports is drawing the line. College basketball? A definite yes. NBA in the picture? Not so much.

Pitino has 7 colleges on his resume as a coach and every one of them with impressive record. But for a few years in between, he traveled to EuroLeague and had two stints as an NBA head coach– New York Knicks and Boston Celtics. The records are nothing to be boastful about. Any reason his magic only works in the college? “

“He goes and he spends two years and then he turns the team around. That’s his MO. He’s done that every place he goes. Now, was he a great NBA coach? No. But he’s the kind of coach that’s a control freak and college he can control. He can make you play his style. He has different styles,” Patrick says on the podcast.

Pitino’s first stint as an NBA head coach was a success. He led the Knicks to their first division title in nearly 20 years. But his time with the Celtics was a different story. As both head coach and general manager, Pitino struggled. He finished with a disappointing 102–146 record. His decision to bring in former Kentucky players–Antoine Walker, Ron Mercer, and Walter McCarty backfired. Despite coaching them to success in college, the pieces never fit in Boston. And as a result, he had to face the consequences. Pitino was forced to resign in January 2008. If you ask him now, the Hall of Famer would probably never have headed towards the men’s league.

“But if I had to do it all over again, I had a choice, I probably would have stayed in Kentucky,” he had said via USA Today. He appreciates getting to work with some of the NBA greats though– Red Auerbach and Bill Russell, calls it a great experience. But there are more than a few who agree that the setup just did not blend with Pitino’s “me” mentality. Dee Brown was one to make the latter part clear. Big egos and personalities make up the league and that just wasn’t the right combination. But it is different in college.

Young, hungry players, looking for a leadership and confidence Pitino is used to carry. It just works. His legacy speaks for itself– only coach to win championships with two different programs and only coach to take three teams to the Final Four. This is probably why he’s earned the comparison with arguably the greatest coach in college basketball history, Coach K! Now Dan Patrick isn’t denying that.

“But Jim Boeheim was saying, ‘if you’re going to say Coach K is the greatest coach, let’s take John Wooden out of it. Rick Pitino is right there with Coach Mike Krzyzewski’. That is a high praise,” he adds on the Dan Patrick show.

Now, Pitino is looking to add another chapter to his glorious career. As St. John’s begins its March Madness run, the HC is locked in on the job at hand.

Rick Pitino and co taking nothing for granted

The Johnnies clinched their 4th Big East title and their first since 2000. As a result Pitino also created history by becoming the first coach to win the Big East title with two different programs. The Red Storm secured the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, marking their first trip since 2019.

Pitino’s St John’s took on the summit league champions and the number 15 seed of the tournament Omaha in the first round of the big dance. At Amica Mutual Pavilion, the home of the Providence Friars, ESPN considered the Red Storm overwhelming favorites to proceed to the next round, giving them a  96.6% of winning. And the Red Storm stood up to it, 83-53. The game may have started in a back-and-forth, but by half time, they had decided to not look back.

Pitino knows the stakes and he wasn’t taking anything for granted despite the odds in his favor.

“All it takes is one bad matchup, one bad shooting night, one good shooting night or one buzzer-beater by the underdog,” the head coach has said ahead of the buildup for the game. He is set to face his rival, Arkansas’ John Calipari in the Round of 32. The last time the two teams faced each other, Pitino was with Louisville and Coach Cal in Kentucky. The Cardinals were sent packing after Sweet 16. This time, however, St. Johns is a better team in almost every category. Will the Razorbacks pull another Cinderalla story or will Pitino be scripting history?

NBA or not, March Madness is all that matters.