Iona Basketball: What to expect with Gaels hire of Rick Pitino

By Bryan Mauro | Mar 18, 2020

COLUMBUS, OHIO - MARCH 22: Andrija Ristanovic #10 of the Iona Gaels celebrates a 3-point basket against the North Carolina Tar Heels during the first half of the game in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Nationwide Arena on March 22, 2019 in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /

2 of 3

COLUMBUS, OHIO – MARCH 22: Asante Gist #3 of the Iona Gaels (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /

What to Expect?

No matter your opinion on Pitino the man, the one thing that can not be disputed is he wins, and he wins a lot. Lets just cut right to the chase. He cheated at Louisville in regard to paying recruits families and AAU teams to secure a commitment to play basketball for him. There were numerous other transgressions that Coach Pitino was guilty of, but what ultimately led to his demise at Lousiville was the FBI investigation into his recruiting tactics.

It was an inevitable fact that Pitino was going to get back into coaching somewhere, he is too good of a coach and the reward for smaller schools greatly outweighs the risk. Iona has never landed a five-star recruit. They have won an NCAA tournament game in their 14 trips to the NCAA tournament. Expect all of that to change quickly. The Gaels are located in New Rochelle, NY which is going to be a hotbed for recruiting given that it is under 30 miles from New York City.

It won’t take Pitino long to bring his winning philosophies to Iona. The Gaels are going to be able to attract a higher caliber player just because of Pitino’s name. Whether he lands them all remains to be seen. No matter what players he gets it can be expected he is going to have Iona as the premier program in the MAAC quickly.

The first order of business for the new head man at Iona is to fill out his coaching staff. No hints have been given as to who Pitino may have on his staff but David Padgett from his staff at Louisville is a safe bet to be included in the staff. Padgett played for Pitino at Louisville and was named the interim coach in Pitino’s stead. Outside of Padgett, it will be interesting to see who the new head coach has on his staff. Many of his former staff members are working at new schools or are head coaches themselves.