By Kenneth Cross
Hall of Famer Rick Pitino is the only college basketball coach in history to get to the Final Four three times with three different schools as he won the national title in 2013 at Louisville. Pitino also took Providence to the Final Four in 1987 and he placed Kentucky in three Final Fours and the Wildcats cut the nets in winning the 1996 national championship.
The Iona Gaels are in their third year under Pitino’s watchful eyes as they are currently 44-16 and 7-2 with a five-game winning streak after the 70-64 win over Princeton Tuesday night.
They took 10 less shots than the Tigers, but their aggressive offensive ability allowed them to generally win the game at the line. Iona made 15-of-20 free throws while Princeton was 8-of- 15 at the line.
“It wasn’t our night,” explained Pitino. “We didn’t play well, but every time you don’t play well, there is a reason. We really struggled guarding a tremendous player who can hurt you so many different ways in their point forward.”
Tosan Evbuomwan is the Tigers’ leading scorer and Tuesday evening, he gave the Gaels a tough challenge with 12 points, seven rebounds, and eight assists.
Walter Clayton, Jr., is the Gaels’ second leading scorer (16.4 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 3.6 apg) and took control in the last 7:30 of the game as Clayton scored 14 of Iona’s final 19 points to push out the win for the Gaels.
“I just wanted to come in and be aggressive and get stops together which was all we talk about on defense,” said Clayton, who made all four of his field goals inside of the last 7:03.
Clayton was a clutch performer as he and leading scorer Darius Jenkins (17.9 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 4.9 apg) scored 20 points each to push the Gaels to their second win over an Ivy League team so far in this young season.
“We didn’t play great defense and we didn’t get out on the break enough, but we had a tremendous will to win with seven minutes to go,” explained Pitino. “To show you how much confidence I have in this talented player (Clayton), I put him in a crucial situation and he made all big shots.”
Coaching Clinic: Pitino was impressed with Princeton, who had won eight in a row after an 0-2 start. Coach Mitch Henderson is in his tenth season as the Tigers’ head coach and had asserted a matchup which had put Princetonin posi tion to pull off an upset at Iona.
“He’s like a Euro League coach,” Pitino explained of Henderson. “They take advantage of your every defensive mismatch and he did that all night to us. He’s a terrific coach.”
Pitino also discussed the Gaels’ fascination with playing Ivy League competition as Iona was looking to lift the impression, both in and out of the classroom.
“We thought Princeton, Penn, and Yale would be one, two, three in the Ivy, so we wanted to play them,” said Pitino.
Hear from head coach @RealPitino following the Gaels' 70-64 victory over Princeton.#IUMBB | #GaelNation pic.twitter.com/h8vfRmv3gP
— Iona Men’s Basketball (@IonaGaelsMBB) December 14, 2022
Pitino Bowl
Sunday evening currently undefeated New Mexico will face Iona in The Pit in Albuquerque as it posts a monumental matchup between Rick Pitino’s Gaels and his son Richard Pitino’s New Mexico Lobos.
The Lobos are currently one of three Mountain West teams that are still undefeated in posting a 10-0 record. UNLV is also sitting at 10-0 with Utah State at 8-0. Interestingly Richard Pitino joins Kevin Kruger and Ryan Odom as all three have renowed fathers who were head coaches in Lon Kruger and Dave Odom.
“We knew New Mexico was going to be great because my son called for the game,” laughed Rick Pitino. “He’s never called me before. We made this schedule so these guys could be challenged.”
Pitino talked about how Richard had learned from the ground up as he placed RIchard in position to be the scout on every game and he took him off of two games because he did not want his son to feel entitlement.
With that in mind, Richard Pitino has put together a system at New Mexico where he stylizes one of the best offensive systems in the nation. The Lobos average 83.8 points per game (16th/CBB) and 48.8 percent from the floor (35th/CBB).
“I think it’s going to be a big treat for the players,” noted Rick Pitino. “I told them this, ‘They’re going to have 13 or 14,000 fans. I said, ‘Richard is going to look to beat us by 30 … 30. He’s not going to take it easy on Dad.’ The reason he is going to try to beat us by 30 is because I taught him that way.”