Big East Basketball: Ranking all 11 head coaches after Pitino/English hires

1. Rick Pitino – St. John’s

Thirty-six years ago, Pitino took Providence to the Final Four, his first trip as a head coach, and his final season in the Big East, at least until now. Pitino just took the St. John’s head coaching job and has his work cut out to build the Red Storm into a consistent program. The former head coach at Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, and Iona certainly has the resume for it.

Pitino won the national championship at Kentucky in 1996 and did the same at Louisville in 2013, though that title was later vacated due to the recruiting scandal that cost him the Louisville job. It’s been six years since that scandal broke, and Pitino is fresh off three very solid years at Iona, leading the Gaels to a pair of NCAA Tournaments. Pitino has been to seven Final Fours (two of them vacated) and has been one of the most polarizing figures in the coaching world in recent years, plus he was also an NBA head coach for six seasons.

When you’re St. John’s, you absolutely plug Pitino into the program and hope you can spring back into relevance. He just did fantastic work up the road at Iona and he is a native of New York. Pitino won’t be coaching for too much longer, but he’ll stay long enough to bring relevance back at St. John’s and really charges up one of the programs that has been dormant for far too long in this league. He also has more Final Fours than every other coach in this league combined.

Do you agree with the rankings of these Big East coaches? Can any other conference even come close to comparing to the power in this league’s head coaches?