yahoo - 3/25/2026 11:24:28 AM - GMT (+2 )
SAN DIEGO – Before he had even turned 45 years old, coach Rick Pitino published a book in 1997 that included his advice about aging.
“The older we get, the more we must change,” said the book entitled Success is a Choice. “Change is what keeps us fresh and innovative. Change is what keeps us from getting stale and stuck in a rut. Change is what keeps us young.”
Nearly 30 years later, we can see what he means. Pitino, now 73, is taking St. John’s to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA men's basketball tournament on Friday against No. 1-seed Duke. It’s the fourth school he’s taken to the Sweet 16. It’s also the fifth decade he’s taken a team this far.
RE-SEEDING THE SWEET16: Separating the contenders from pretenders
So how does he do it?
Part of it relates to that advice in his book. But there’s more. And much of it was on display in San Diego recently, when his team won two NCAA Tournament games. Here are five traits that set him apart, backed by evidence and anecdotes from the past weekend:
Fellow Hall of Fame coach Bill Self of Kansas made an observation about Pitino the day before his team lost to St. John’s in the second round March 22. He said he was especially impressed by coaches who evolved to master changes in the game, including the introduction of the shot clock (1985) and 3-point shot (1986). Pitino was hired at Providence before either and then took Providence to the Final Four in 1987.
“I think that he's done that as well as anybody maybe ever has,” Self said.
More recently, the NCAA allowed unlimited annual player transfers in 2024 after decades of restrictions. Pitino has built his St. John’s team around transfer players and had the No. 1 transfer class in the nation for 2025, according to 247Sports.
2. Rick Pitino reinvents and rehabilitates himselfHe was the head coach at Kentucky and Louisville, two archrivals. He was the head coach of Boston University and the Boston Celtics. Now he’s the head coach of St. John’s University of New York after previously serving as head coach of the New York Knicks.
It takes some personal reinvention to take on such starkly different jobs in the same cities or regions. It also took some self-awareness to put himself in exile and rehabilitate his image after a rash of scandals at Louisville, where he was fired in 2017.
He left the country to coach in Greece until 2020 and then came back to the U.S. to coach at Iona. He won enough at both places to put the scandals in his distant past and get hired at St. John’s in 2023.
He wasn’t even asked about those controversies in four news conferences while his team was in San Diego.
Like with a slot machine at a casino, you can’t win the jackpot if you don’t keep pulling the lever. But you also risk big losses if you do. He takes this risk.
For example, St. John’s guard Dylan Darling had played poorly against Kansas on Sunday, missing all four shots he took. Then he had the audacity to ask Pitino for the ball on the final play with the score tied at 65-65 in the final seconds. Pitino let him do it despite Darling’s lack of production before then. Darling then won the game with a buzzer-beating layup.
Likewise, Pitino has emphasized 3-point shooting as a big key to success for his team in this tournament so far. If the shots don’t fall, he wants the players to keep shooting until they do. In the first half against Kansas, St. John’s hit just 7 of 23 3-point attempts.
"I kept telling them… every time out, 'Look, you're going to make five in a row; you're going to make six in a row,'" Pitino said afterward. "They didn't believe a word I was saying, but I was telling them you gotta keep shooting it. It was the only way we were going to win tonight."
St. John’s outscored Kansas in 3-point shooting, 33-15.
4. He’s cool and has swaggerIn this regard, he’s somewhat like Deion Sanders, the football coach at Colorado. Both have been relevant in their sports since the 1980s. Both were innovative enough to pioneer the art of flipping a team roster with transfer players in 2023, when hardly anybody else was doing it. Both have a flair with fashion — Sanders with his sunglasses and jewelry, Pitino with his Armani suits and ties (while other coaches are mostly wearing athleisure gear).
What does any of this matter?
It signals confidence in their craft built over time while still daring to be different.
A cool head helps, too, avoiding exhaustion in a game of so many ups and downs. Did you see Pitino’s reaction to Darling’s game-winning layup against Kansas? Instead of exploding with joy in reaction to it, Pitino looked like his number was just called after waiting in line at the DMV.
5. Rick Pitino hates Christian LaettnerOK, he never said he hated the hated legend from Duke. But on the eve of another game against Duke, the memory is still fresh for Pitino, who was the coach at Kentucky in 1992 when Laettner hit a game-winning shot at the buzzer to beat Kentucky and lift Duke to the Final Four.
The flashback still seems to make him edgy. He said Sunday he was "so sick of commercials with Christian Laettner hitting that shot over and over and over."
He said friends recently convinced him to watch a show on Hulu called “Paradise” but then learned Laettner’s shot is referenced in that, too.
"That’s cruel," Pitino said.
He got his own buzz-beater from Darling Sunday. Now it’s on to Duke in Washington, D.C.
“You win some, you lose some,” Pitino said. “And I'm hoping we can get Duke at the buzzer next to make up for that Christian Laettner shot.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How St. John's basketball coach Rick Pitino just keeps winning
read more