Iona Basketball coach Rick Pitino has the Gaels (20-7) atop the MAAC and the league tournament is scheduled to begin in less than two weeks at Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.
But as Pitino prepares to lead Iona to a second straight regular season title with aspirations of winning a second conference tournament championship in March and an automatic title bid NCAA Tournamenthis coaching future in college basketball has become a hot topic.
In the coming weeks, several high-profile coaching opportunities are expected to become vacant, including potential Big East jobs like Georgetown and St. John’s, among others. However, even as higher-level programs emerge, Pitino told Matt Norlander of CBS Sports that it would take a “really special” program to keep him away from Iona.
“It would have to be a really, really special place with the type of president I have here,” Pitino said. “If I wanted to leave, it would be a job that I thought could get me to the Final Four.”
Specifically, Pitino said there are “20 to 30 states I don’t want to live in,” a list that includes many Big Ten states, according to CBS Sports.
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In November, the independent review committee of the independent accountability resolution process Pitino exonerated, saying he had committed no offense and “demonstrated an atmosphere of compliance in the Louisville NCAA pay-to-play scandal.” But in October, weeks before the IARP cleared Pitino, he was seeking a lifetime extension to his contract at Iona.
However, the extensions did not work out for various “reasons”.
“I’m not upset, and no one is,” Pitino said previously. said ahead of the 2022 season. “…There was a changing of the guard on the board and a few other things that didn’t work out with the contract, so it’s no hard feelings and we’re just trying to have a good team this year.”
Currently, Pitino has three years remaining on his current contract which would earn him a high six-figure salary. But more importantly, Pitino had a buyout on his contract worth millions, which played a role in preventing him from leaving for a job with a bigger program.
Pitino was offered three jobs, including a “big job,” which CBS Sports reported was the opening at Maryland. His buyout is one of the main reasons he hasn’t moved forward in the process.
“…I said it was a big job, I said, ‘Look, I have a $5 million buyout. Before that, I had $10 million. I’m not worth that,’” Pitino said, according to CBS Sports.
Maryland ended up hiring Kevin Willard, former Gaels coach and friend of Pitino. But the longtime basketball coach took steps to expand his coaching opportunities when he met with Iona president Seamus Carey, who cleared his buyout last offseason.
Without a buyout, Pitino’s name will likely float among different programs looking to find their next head coach, despite the baggage and controversy surrounding his college basketball coaching career.
