Three and a half years. In case you were wondering, that’s how long you have to wait to return to college basketball after overseeing a program involved in a “pay for play” scandal involving recruits. At least that’s apparently the case when you’re Rick Pitino. Fired in October 2017 by Louisville, Pitino will make his return to college basketball in the 2020-2021 season (assuming it happens) as the head coach of the Iona Gaels.
Rick Pitino to Iona is done, per sources.
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 14, 2020
BREAKING: Iona will hire Rick Pitino as its next head basketball coach, per Gaels' Athletic Director Matt Glovaski.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 14, 2020
Ionaofficially announces Rick Pitino as its next head coach. Statement from Pitino below.
I’m going on @CBSSportsHQ right now to discuss all of it. Watch: https://t.co/7lsoOIW8jW pic.twitter.com/6JH5mjACPt
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 14, 2020
Since December 2018, Pitino has been the head coach of Greek basketball club Panathinaikos. Last season, they won the 2018–19 Greek Basket League championship and Pitino signed a 1.5-year contract extension to make him the head coach through the summer of 2021. Apparently not, however.
Hope we can finish the season with the Euroleague. I will treasure coaching the PAO players for the rest of my life. Hoping we find a vaccine and a cure soon.
— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) March 14, 2020
Matt Norlander is reporting that if Euroleague resumes play this summer, Pitino will return to Europe to finish the season.
Breaking: Source tells @CBSSports that Rick Pitino has told his Panathinaikos B.C. players that he is returning to college basketball but will finish out the Euroleague season if/when it resumes. League halted play earlier this week and Pitino is currently in the United States.
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 14, 2020
Iona coach Tim Cluess announced on Friday that he was stepping down after 10 seasons with Iona due to health reasons and rumors swirled around Pitino, who had apparently been putting out feelers about returning to college basketball. He quickly became a candidate there as well as at Grand Canyon University, which had just fired head coach Dan Majerle.
The details are yet unknown but so are the potential punishments handed down by the NCAA regarding the college basketball scandal that Pitino’s Louisville program was a major part of. The Cardinals were linked to an FBI investigation into allegations that Adidas had paid the family of Brian Bowen $100,000 in order to make him commit to Louisville. Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich were placed on administrative leave and then fired shortly thereafter.
The NCAA is expected to finally announce any penalities against programs and coaches in spring or summer 2020. It’s unknown if and what penalities Pitino might face and how that could affect Iona. Of course, we all know how college athletics works and plenty of schools are willing to roll the dice on coaches with troubled pasts if it means more wins.
That said, Pitino is taking over a fairly successful Iona program. Before missing this past season with health issues, Cluess led the Gaels to either the regular-season or conference tournament championship every season between 2012 to 2019.
While it’s something of a homecoming for the NY-born Pitino, he brings plenty of baggage with him to New Rochelle. Along with the aforementioned Louisville scandal, Pitino was also wrapped up in a sordid escort scandal in 2015 and got wrapped up in an extortion attempt in 2009 following an extramarital sexual encounter with a woman in a Louisville restaurant.
Of course, he’s also taken three different schools to the Final Four and won a national title, so those are the things that likely came up when listing out the pros and cons of hiring Pitino.
Whether Pitino is able to keep his head down and get back to coaching basketball, and if he’d even want to just keep his head down, remains to be seen. Iona is certainly making a big splash but it’s one that comes with a potentially big cost in terms of reputation. What price are they willing to pay to maintain the level of success they’ve had over the last decade? We’re about to find out.
FYI: Iona is an adidas school.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 14, 2020