Not long after he surpassed 900 wins as a Division I head coach, Rick Pitino set his sights on another rarely reached milestone.
“Getting 900 is a nice thing, certainly,” Pitino said Wednesday night after St. John’s defeated Butler at Madison Square Garden. “But getting 1,000 would be a lot better.”
Wednesday’s 92-70 win was the 901st collegiate victory for Pitino, who is in his third season at St. John’s.
He earned win No. 900 last weekend in Cincinnati, beating his son — Xavier head coach Richard Pitino — to do so.
“It was awesome,” St. John’s guard Dylan Darling said. “Coach [Pitino] won’t say he really wanted this one, but we all know he really wanted this one against his son. It was really fun to be able to pull through and see him like that.”
Pitino, 73, is one of only four coaches to achieve 900 on-court victories, joining Mike Krzyzewski (1,202), Jim Boeheim (1,116) and Roy Williams (903). Bob Knight (899) ranks fifth all time.
The NCAA record books officially recognize only 778 of Pitino’s victories because Louisville had 123 wins vacated amid scandal.
But in terms of actual results, Pitino is 901-316 (.740) over 38 seasons, which the coach describes as a “long journey.”
“We’ve moved a lot,” Pitino said Wednesday with his wife, Joanne, in the MSG press-conference room.
“We started our career — I started in Hawaii, and was Jim Boeheim’s first assistant coach [at Syracuse]. We lived in Syracuse. We left our Karmann Ghia Volkswagen in the parking lot in October and found it in April, and that’s a true story. That’s how much snow we had that year.”
Pitino’s first win came in 1976 during his brief stint as Hawaii’s interim head coach.
He was an assistant for two years at Syracuse before making head-coaching stops at Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona and St. John’s.
Pitino was also a Knicks assistant coach from 1983-85 and their head coach from 1987-89, as well as the Boston Celtics’ head coach from 1997-2001 — seasons in which Pitino did not add to his NCAA win total.
“I’m happy for him that he won 900. I think he’s the best coach to ever coach college basketball. He’d have a lot more [wins] if he had stayed at Kentucky,” Richard Pitino, 43, said after St. John’s defeated his Musketeers, 88-83, last weekend.
“But when your dad is 73, you just want him to be happy and healthy. We all are reminded way too much of how short life is, so to see him doing great, coaching, being celebrated at St. John’s, that’s all I care about.”
During Wednesday’s return to the Garden, St. John’s commemorated Pitino’s 900th win with a video tribute and by giving him a framed “900” jersey during a pregame ceremony.
After winning the Big East’s regular season and conference tournament championships last year, St. John’s is 16-5 (9-1 in conference play) this season. Overall, Pitino is 67-23 (.744) at St. John’s, with whom he signed a six-year contract in March 2023.
As for why he wants to get to 1,000 victories?
“That means I’ve got to be blessed with good health, good players, and just keep recruiting,” Pitino said. “The better you recruit, the better coach I am.”
