There are reports that a Big East school like St. This year, Iona put everything together, going 17-3 in MAAC play and landing a 13-seed. The Gaels won the MAAC regular-season title last year, but lost to Saint Peter’s in the conference tourney, and we all remember what happened next for the Peacocks. After Pitino was hired by Iona in 2020, he instantly got the tiny Catholic school just outside of New York City into the NCAA tournament in his first season, but they lost as a 15-seed in the tourney. That’s how the college basketball coaching carousel broadly works, and Pitino is spinning the right way again.Īnd he’s still damn good at coaching. Except it turns out it wasn’t really that big of a scandal, and he wasn’t really that deeply involved in it, and look, who cares, the point is now schools think it’s OK to have Rick Pitino as their head coach again. The two-time national champion-who’s just a one-time champ, if you ask the NCAA-went to the basketball hinterlands after Louisville fired him in 2017 for his involvement in yet another scandal. Pitino might legitimately be the most famous person involved with the NCAA tournament (it’s not Coach K anymore!) but lately he’s been coaching at Iona, one of the least famous schools in the tourney. Best Subplot: Rick Pitino’s Career RevivalĪn interesting subplot of any NCAA tournament is which up-and-coming coaches from mid-major programs can turn a tourney run into a job with a big-name school, a trope that will get a fun twist this year as schools train their sights on the coach who has Iona playing in its second NCAA tourney in three years: Rick Pitino. And if he can’t pull it off, I’ll pick the Zags next year anyway. This is all Drew Timme has: If anybody is going to will Gonzaga to its long-awaited title, it’s our mustachioed hero.
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He reportedly plans on going pro instead of using his fifth season of eligibility in 2023-24, although it’s not clear where-he’s not one of the 40 players listed in The Ringer’s 2023 NBA Draft Guide. Remember Drew Timme, the big guy with the big mustache from Gonzaga’s run to the 2021 title game? He’s averaging career highs in points, rebounds, and assists in his final college season. Perhaps the Bulldogs are peaking now because they’ve got experience you rarely see from a legit title contender in the one-and-done era of college hoops: Their top five leading scorers are all juniors or seniors, and none of their rotation players are freshmen. The Bulldogs have the most efficient offense in college basketball yet again, and are the only team of the top 11 seeds in the West regional which actually won its conference tourney, so it’s the only team in this part of the bracket that closed strong. Gonzaga closed strong with a pair of comfortable wins over the second-best team in the WCC, Saint Mary’s, which happens to be the 5-seed in this region.
But they also put up 100 points in a win over Alabama-the team who would go on to be, as it turns out, the overall no. 2 in November before suffering blowout losses to Texas and Purdue. But things went differently for this year’s Bulldogs, who were ranked no. 1 seed, are called a fraud by every bracket analyst online except for me, and then lose in the Sweet 16. They normally enter the NCAA tournament with a record like 34-1, get the overall no. You probably didn’t hear too much hype about the Zags this year. The NCAA will crumble, the 4-point line will be added to all basketball courts, large swaths of Washington will fall into the Pacific Ocean, but I will hold the line on the Zags, as long as it takes. I promise to continue picking Gonzaga to make the Final Four until it wins this damn thing. The Ringer ’s Rodger Sherman goes region by region to break down the teams that could make the Final Four, the double-digit seeds that have interesting stories, and the biggest questions entering the event.
But brackets need to be filled out by Thursday, so we have to try. The NCAA selection committee has released its men’s March Madness bracket, and it’s hard to get a grasp on the field right away.
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