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Tennessee basketball came into Thursday's NCAA tournament matchup against St. Peter's eager to avoid an upset against a team that made a miraculous Elite Eight run in 2022.
The No. 2 Vols had no trouble against the No. 15 Peacocks, picking up a dominant 83-49 win behind a big night from star guard Dalton Knecht. Tennessee will now take on No. 7 Texas in the Round of 32 on Saturday.
The All-American and SEC Player of the Year Knecht was locked in during his first NCAA tournament. The Northern Colorado transfer had 23 points and eight rebounds on an efficient 8-of-15 from the floor.
Vols' big man Jonas Aidoo added 15 points and guard Zakai Zeigler had a double-double with 11 points and 10 assists.
Knecht, who had seven games where he scored 30+ points this season, is looking to lead the Vols to their first Final Four appearance in program history this season. A strong start to the tournament has fans convinced he can do it.
Beating a No. 15 seed is to be expected, but the Vols' dominance has fans ready for what could be a deep run. Tennessee still has a long road ahead, but with an elite scorer like Knecht and a solid group of veterans, it seems this could be the team that finally gets the Vols to the Final Four.
Iona men's basketball head coach Rick Pitino is on the move after three seasons with the Gaels.
The 70-year-old has agreed to become the next head coach of the St. John's Red Storm, the school announced Monday. The deal is for six years, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
Pitino said in a statement:
"One of my great coaching memories was having the distinct privilege of coaching against Lou Carnesecca and St John's, a Hall of Fame coach and historic program that I have always respected. It is surreal to now have this opportunity to bring St John's back to prominence. I'm honored, humbled and grateful to Fr. Shanley, Bill Janetschek and Mike Cragg for making me feel so special."
The news comes after ESPN's Pete Thamel and Jeff Borzello reported Monday that Pitino had met with St. John's officials and that the two sides were in "serious discussions" to make him the Red Storm's next head coach.
Pitino will replace Mike Anderson, who was fired as the team's head coach on March 10 following a disappointing 18-15 season. The Red Storm didn't make the NCAA tournament in any of Anderson's four seasons at the helm.
In his three seasons at Iona, the Gaels won the MAAC tournament and made the NCAA tournament twice. He led the team to a 27-8 finish during the 2022-23 season and a 64-22 record overall.
During his tenure with Kentucky from 1989 to 1997, the Wildcats made the NCAA tournament in all six seasons they were eligible, making three Final Four appearances and winning an NCAA title during the 1995-96 campaign.
Following his stint with Kentucky, Pitino coached the Boston Celtics for parts of four seasons before ending up with Louisville from 2001 to 2017. He led the team to 13 NCAA tournament appearances, including three Final Fours and a national championship. He was fired in October 2017 following a recruiting scandal.
St. John's now hopes Pitino can revive the Red Storm and bring the team back to prominence in 2023 and beyond.
Two days after Iona fell to UConn in the first round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, head coach Rick Pitino reportedly could be on the verge of finding a new home.
According to ESPN's Pete Thamel and Jeff Borzello, Pitino has met with officials from St. John's, and the two sides are in "serious discussions" for him to become the team's next head coach. Thamel and Borzello noted that "the meeting was viewed as productive," as Pitino "laid out his vision for the program."
Pitino is reportedly the "primary target" of St. John's, which became free to engage him in discussions when the Gaels were bounced from March Madness. The school fired Mike Anderson on March 10 following a 7-13 campaign.
In terms of major-conference schools, Pitino most recently made his mark as head coach of Louisville from 2001 to 2017, leading the team to three Final Fours and a national championship. His involvement in a recruiting scandal led to his dismissal, and he spent some time coaching in Greece before being hired by Iona in March 2020.
The 70-year-old, who has also coached at Boston University, Providence and Kentucky, has coached the Gaels to a 64-22 record with two NCAA tournament appearances in three seasons.
A native New Yorker, Pitino would instantly breathe new life into a St. John's program that hasn't made it to the NCAA tournament since 2019.
Watch March Madness Live to stream every tournament game through the Final Four.
At 70 years old, Iona Gaels head coach Rick Pitino doesn't plan on leaving the sidelines any time soon, telling reporters at the NCAA men's basketball tournament that he hopes to continue coaching for at least another 10 years.
"Well, I'm physically fit and mentally I think I still have it," Pitino said Thursday. "But my wife always says, 'If you want to make God laugh, make a plan.' I think you just take it one year at a time. Now, my desire would be to coach that long."
Pitino later added that he'd love to coach for as many as 12 more years, "but I'll take six to seven." He explained that his time away from basketball refueled his love for his craft.
"Really, the two years I was out of coaching was really the most miserable two years of my life because I missed it so much because I love teaching, I love coaching, I love motivating - everything about it, I missed it terribly," he said.
Pitino was the head coach of the Louisville Cardinals from 2001 to 2017, leading the program to three Final Fours and a national championship. He was placed on administrative leave before his dismissal for his involvement in a recruiting scandal in which players allegedly were paid to play for the Cardinals.
After leaving Louisville, Pitino went to Greece in Dec. 2018 to coach at Panathinaikos before returning to college basketball as Iona head coach in March 2020. He has since led the Gaels to a 64-21 record in three seasons and two NCAA tournament appearances. The 13th-seeded Gaels will face fourth-seeded UConn in a first-round game on Friday.
Pitino has been linked to recent head-coach openings at St. John's and Georgetown, but he noted that he feels a special level of commitment to Iona.
"The thing you have to look at is my players don't leave unless they just can't play at this level," he said. "They came for player development. They didn't come for any other reason other than player development. ... So that's really important to me as well. I look at that as the No. 1 factor in my life. So to answer your question that would be honest, it's going to take a special place for me to consider leaving."
Watch March Madness Live to stream every tournament game through the Final Four.
In light of their recent head coaching vacancies, St. John's and Texas Tech are vetting Iona's Rick Pitino to head up their programs, according to CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein.
St. John's parted ways with coach Mike Anderson Friday after four seasons with the team while Mark Adams stepped down as coach of the Red Raiders after he was suspended for making racially insensitive comments.
Pitino, 70, was hired by Iona in March 2020, and he's led the Gaels to two regular-season MAAC championships and an NCAA tournament appearance.
Rothstein said St. John's began looking into Pitino as a potential head coaching candidate a few weeks ago and has made the former national champion its primary target.
While Texas Tech has had more success over the last decade, St. John's would give Pitino the chance to make a return to the Big East, the conference where he first made a name for himself as the coach at Providence from 1985-87.
In the 1986-87 season he led the Friars to a 25-9 record and an appearance in the Final Four, just the program's second-ever appearance.
St. John's was decent under Anderson but the program never reached the heights once expected of the Big East giants. He lost at least 15 games in three of his four seasons with the Red Storm.
After leading Texas Tech to a 27-10 record and an appearance in the Sweet 16 last season—his first as head coach—Adams didn't find the same success in 2022-23. He went just 16-15 before his suspension.
Shaheen Holloway may not be the only one capitalizing on Saint Peter's improbable run to the Elite Eight of the 2022 NCAA men's basketball tournament.
Holloway wasted little time in leaving to coach his alma mater, Seton Hall. Now, On3’s Matt Zenitz is reporting Peacocks players Doug Edert, Daryl Banks III and Matthew Lee have entered the transfer portal.
Banks was the team's leading scorer at 11.3 points per game. Edert averaged 9.5 points and was the Peacocks' biggest three-point threat, hitting 41.1 percent of his long-range jumpers. Lee, meanwhile, was a valuable playmaker, averaging 6.8 points and 2.9 assists.
Banks was the standout performer for Saint Peter's during the tournament. He dropped 27 points on Kentucky in a first-round upset of the second-seeded Wildcats. The 6'3" guard had a 14-point effort against Purdue in the Sweet 16 as well.
Edert, who had 20 points against Kentucky, quickly emerged as a fan favorite and parlayed his 15 minutes of fame into an endorsement deal with Buffalo Wild Wings.
For years, the norm has been for a coach at a mid-major program to leave for greener pastures on the heels of an unexpectedly successful tournament run. If his connection with Seton Hall hadn't made his move so obvious, another school presumably would've come calling for Holloway.
The athletes didn't normally get to enjoy that luxury, though.
That's no longer the case thanks to the NCAA's new name, image and likeness guidelines and the one-time transfer rule. Players can now collect NIL money and potentially head to a school that allows them to increase their earning potential, play on a bigger stage or both.
While perhaps not to the same degree, the NCAA tournament will have a Saint Peter's every year. One mid-major busts everyone's brackets and achieves fame on a scale it hadn't experienced.
But the new era of college athletics will make it more difficult for those Cinderellas to enjoy a second bite at the apple in the Big Dance.
Saint Peters men's basketball head coach Shaheen Holloway, who led the 15th-seeded Peacocks on a historic Cinderella run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, is expected to be named head coach of the Seton Hall Pirates "in the coming days," according to Brian Fonseca of NJ.com.
A deal is expected to be completed before the Final Four, NJ.com's Adam Zagoria added.
However, Holloway isn't focused on what could be after his team's 69-49 loss to the No. 8 UNC Tar Heels in the Elite Eight on Sunday.
"I'm not worried about that," Holloway said, according to Zagoria. "I'm worried about those 15 young men whose heart is down and what they've done the last two weeks. We're going to walk out of here the same way we walked in—with our head up."
Holloway's Peacocks became the first No. 15 seed in NCAA tournament history to reach the Elite Eight. They defeated the No. 2 Kentucky Wildcats, No. 7 Murray State Racers and No. 3 Purdue Boilermakers before falling to UNC.
Holloway went 64-54 in his four seasons as head coach at Saint Peter's. In addition, Holloway served as an assistant coach for Seton Hall for eight seasons before taking the Saint Peters head coaching job.
Should the 45-year-old decide to join Seton Hall, it would be a homecoming for the former Pirates star. He played for the program from 1996-2000 and helped lead his team to the Sweet 16 in his final season.
Seton Hall's former head coach, Kevin Willard, was recently hired as head coach of the Maryland Terrapins. He had been head coach of the Pirates since 2010, leading the team to five NCAA tournament appearances.
The No. 15 Saint Peter's Peacocks have defeated some of the best teams in college basketball in their historic NCAA tournament run. However, the school will unlikely reap the financial benefits of reaching the Elite Eight, and possibly the Final Four.
MAAC Commissioner Rich Ensor said Saint Peter's is unlikely to receive a financial "jackpot" despite its efforts in the NCAA tournament, according to ESPN's Pete Thamel. He added that how to compensate the school is something he would have to address "with my board."
"I don't anticipate there's going to be a jackpot," Ensor said of Saint. Peter's. "[The presidents] could go in a different direction. It's really not my call. They tend to want to re-invest."
Ensor added that the MAAC already has a system in place to award teams that have won in the NCAA tournament with a "modest" cut of the profit. The rest of the money is used "toward improving basketball in the league," according to Thamel.
According to Thamel, Saint Peter's run to the Elite Eight is worth more than $8.1 million. If a larger portion of that money was given to the school, it would greatly impact the Peacocks' program.
Peacocks head coach Shaheen Holloway earns $266,344, per USA Today's Steve Berkowitz, which isn't even close to what some of the coaches still in the NCAA tournament make. For comparison, Kansas head coach Bill Self earned $5.4 million this season, per Berkowitz and USA Today colleague Paul Myerberg.
In addition, Thamel reported the program has four staff members who are unpaid.
"Oh, my gosh," Saint Peter's athletic director Rachelle Paul said when asked about about the potential for the program to earn more. "It could change our whole program. It could help with recruiting, it could help with scholarships, it could help with facility upgrades. There's a million things that we could use that money for."
The Peacocks have been the talk of the tournament after defeating No. 2 Kentucky in the first round, No. 7 Murray State in the second round and No. 3 Purdue in the Sweet 16. They are set to face No. 8 North Carolina on Sunday in Elite Eight action.
Doug Edert and Daryl Banks III have paced the Peacocks throughout the tournament, but Holloway has received complete efforts out of his squad, both offensively and defensively.
While Saint Peter's has already managed to put its name on the map, it could certainly further its legacy with an upset of UNC, one of the top programs in college basketball history.
The 15-seed Saint Peter's Peacocks defeated the three-seed Purdue Boilermakers 67-64 on Friday at Wells Fargo Center in the Sweet 16, becoming the first 15 seed in NCAA history to advance to the Elite Eight.
However, Peacocks guard Doug Edert said the team isn't satisfied just yet.
"Well we're happy," Edert said after the win. "We're happy, but don't mistake, we're not satisfied. We're not satisfied at all."
Saint Peter's has had an impressive run to the Elite Eight. The Peacocks knocked off the No. 2 seed Kentucky Wildcats 85-79 in the first round before upsetting the No. 7 Murray State Racers 70-60 in the second round to reach the Sweet 16.
Saint Peter's is set to face either No. 4 UCLA or No. 8 North Carolina in the Elite Eight. If the team reaches the Final Four, it will be one of the most impressive runs in NCAA tournament history, if it hasn't been already.
