Rick Pitino has won nearly every award that college basketball has to offer but prior to Wednesday he had never won the Big East Coach of the Year, but that streak is now over.
The league formally announced what everyone had already anticipated that the St. John’s head coach was voted as the Coach of the Year after leading the Johnnies to a No. 6 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll, a program record 27 regular season wins, tying a conference record with 18 wins, and winning the outright regular season championship.
It was the school’s first standalone Big East regular season championship since 1984-85 and it is looking to win its first conference tournament since 2000.
This year comes on the heels of its disappointing end to last season in which the Johnnies fell short of the NCAA Tournament in Pitino’s first campaign with the school.
St. John’s was picked to finish 5th in the Big East Preseason Poll and won the league by three games, earning its title a week before its regular season finale on the road against Marquette.
Stars RJ Luis and Zuby Ejiofor were named to the All-Big East First Team while Kadary Richmond was tabbed to the Second Team. Ejiofor was announced earlier in the week as the league’s Most Improved Player.
Pitino becomes fourth ever St. John’s coach to win the award and first since Mike Anderson during the 2020-21 season. Lou Carnesecca won the award three times in a four-year span from 1982-1986 while Brian Mahoney got the honor in 1992-93.
During his time at Kentucky Rick Pitino was a three-time SEC Coach of the Year and a two-time Coach of the Year in the MAAC while at Iona. He also won the National Coach of the Year in 1987 with Providence.
Pitino never won the ACC Coach of the Year when Louisville left the Big East in 2013.
St. John’s begins its run at the Big East Tournament on Thursday afternoon (12:00 p.m. ET, Peacock) against either Providence or Butler.