Rick Pitino and St. Johns agreed to make him the next head coach of the St. Johns Mens Basketball team for the next six years. After his introductory press conference, he spoke about his past scandals, reports ON3’s Nick Schultz.

“One thing I can tell you is I’ve made my mistakes. But I’ve always run a clean program. I’ve never, ever — I got cited for violations of failure to monitor my assistant coaches. But nowhere along the way did the NCAA ever find any wrongdoing on my part. I’ve never cheated in the game. I have too much respect for the game to do that. I believe in hard work, I believe in the strong work ethic second to none.”

Rick Pitino is of course no stranger to scandal, but he remains confident in his integrity for the sport of basketball. Strong statements coming from Pitino, however he does own up to his mistakes and has done the work to regain credibility as a coach.

After being exiled from the game due to scandals at Louisville, Rick Pitino eventually made his return to coaching overseas. He coached in Greece for Panathinaikos and led them to a Greek Cup in the 2018-19 season. Success in Greece led him to secure a job at Iona back in the US, and he is coming off a trip to the NCAA Tournament with the Gaels.

Iona was the last step in returning Pitino to basketball prominence, as he now agrees to coach the storied St. Johns program. St. Johns has been out of the basketball limelight for quite some time now. Rick Pitino looks to elevate them back to the top of the Big East Conference, where Pitino coached the Providence Friars over 35 years ago.

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