Pitino’s return shows potential to recapture magic he never lost

 

Rick Pitino (right) and Kevin Willard embrace before Pitino consummated his return to college basketball with Iona Monday. (Photo by Josh Thomson/The Journal News)

When Kevin Willard walked out to the Prudential Center floor Monday night, the mere sight of his counterpart told a story no amount of words ever could.

“I was just, more than anything, ecstatic to see a Hall of Fame basketball coach back where he belongs, on the sideline,” the Seton Hall coach said of looking across the court at Rick Pitino — his former boss and longtime father figure of sorts — now the head coach at Iona College, where Willard prefaced his current run in South Orange for three years before replacing Bobby Gonzalez in 2010.

Back in the college basketball landscape for the first time since his contentious divorce from the University of Louisville in 2017, Pitino did not emerge victorious Monday, as his young Gaels team was soundly defeated by Willard’s Pirates, 86-64. But beyond the final score lurked a long-term tale whose conclusion, as far as first impressions go, may perhaps be destined for the fairytale ending that far too often exists only in children’s books and imaginations.

For 26 minutes Monday, it was Iona who was the primary aggressor against a Seton Hall team returning three-fifths of a starting lineup that shared a Big East Conference regular season championship and was headed for its fifth straight NCAA Tournament before COVID-19 decided otherwise. The Gaels torched the nets in Newark early and often, connecting on 3-point shots and outhustling the more athletic and talented Pirates to lead by as many as nine points in the opening stanza, confirming that any magic that was thought to have been outdated in their coach’s exile was, in fact, alive and well.

“I’m really super proud of our guys for the way they executed,” a visibly content Pitino remarked after an opening game that was contested without senior point guard Asante Gist — out with a finger injury — and 7-foot-1 center Osborn Shema. “But I’m super excited to be back. I’m disappointed that we lost tonight, but I know it’ll make us a better team.”

“I thought our defensive intensity was great in the first half, but we’ve got 15 new players. We’re coming out of quarantine like Seton Hall, we have a point guard and a starting center out. Overall, it was terrific.”

On top of that, many new observations took hold Monday as well. Aside from Iona’s debuting gold uniforms, the Gaels were as engaged on the defensive side of the basketball at any point in the past decade, no knock on Tim Cluess and the attention he frequently paid to that part of the game. Freshmen Nelly Junior Joseph and Ryan Myers showed mounds of potential, as did Dwayne Koroma against Seton Hall’s Sandro Mamukelashvili. Sophomore guard Tahlik Chavez looked like a serviceable complement to Isaiah Ross, and between Robert Brown and Dylan van Eyck, Iona is solidly endowed up front. All told, for a roster where three-quarters of the personnel are new to Division I basketball, the fundamentally sound nature and attention to the most minute of details offered a telling glimpse of what the future holds in New Rochelle once the full complement of the Gaels’ arsenal is healthy and ready to roll in lockstep with the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference portion of the schedule.

“I feel we’re going to make it big-time,” Pitino gushed. “I’m lucky because I’m taking the place of a coach who was magnificent. Tim Cluess was awesome, and just to show you how awesome he was, when he didn’t coach last year — they went to four straight NCAAs, they had outstanding talent — and they were 12-17. So we’ve got to get them back to Tim Cluess’ level, and then we’ve got to take it to even a higher level, like Jimmy V did.”

“We are going to be a really good basketball team. I’m not going to get into May Madness or any of that stuff, but I think once we hit January-February, we’re going to have so many close moments, it’s going to knock you out.”