Rick Pitino makes St. John's history with AP Coach of the Year nod

Rick Pitino has received another accolade for heading a drastic turnaround season for St. John’s basketball.

The legendary head coach was named AP National Coach of the Year on Friday, sharing the honor with Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, whose Tigers are set to play in the Final Four on Saturday. It is the first time ever that the award voting resulted in a tie, leading to a shared honor.

For Pitino, he becomes the first Red Storm head coach to receive the award, and just the sixth head coach in the deep history of the Big East.

In just his second season with St. John’s, Pitino guided the program to a Big East regular season title and a conference tournament championship, the first time the team won the tournament in 25 years and first time they won the regular season title in four decades. That propelled the Johnnies to a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, where they won their first tournament game since 2000 before falling to Arkansas in the second round.

The team’s 31 wins overall matched a program record, and became the first St. John’s team since 1932 to go undefeated at home.

Pitino also won Big East Coach of the Year and is a finalist for the Naismith National Coach of the Year award.

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