Did Rick Pitino ever win a national championship? Exploring St. John's HC's trophy record

Rick Pitino is known for a number of things. The Hall of Fame coach boasts one of the most extensive coaching trees in the country. At least 21 of his former players and assistants went on to coach in Division I.

He's also one of the most traveled coaches in college basketball, having coached at least 13 basketball teams in college, the NBA and internationally. But does he have a national championship title?

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Did Rick Pitino win a national championship?

Rick Pitino has won two national championships as a coach. His first national championship came in 1996 as coach of the Kentucky Wildcats.

His second national championship title, which the NCAA has since vacated, was won in 2013 with the Louisville Cardinals. Pitino became the only coach to win the national championship with two teams when he won with Louisville in 2013.

Among other remarkable records by the coach, he's also the first to take three college programs to the final four. Pitino first reached the final four in 1987, coaching a Providence team that had Billy Donovan. He repeated the feat with Kentucky in 1993, leading the Wildcats to national championship glory in 1996.

Pitino left Kentucky in 1997 for his third stint in the NBA. He coached the Boston Celtics until 2001, when he returned to college basketball, this time taking charge of the Louisville Cardinals.

He took the Cardinals to the final four in 2005. The program had been absent from that stage for 19 years. Pitino was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.

The acclaimed coach has had his share of scandals and sanctions, though. In his very first coaching job as an assistant coach at the University of Hawaii, he was implicated in an NCAA investigation into the program.

While in charge of the Louisville Cardinals, the program came under scrutiny, and he was charged with “failure to monitor” the program. The scandal involved a sex-for-pay scandal that allegedly occurred under his watch.

The scandal led to his departure from Louisville, and he went abroad to coach in the EuroLeague. He led the Greek outfit, Panathinaikos, from 2018 to 2020, when he took over from Tim Cluess as coach of the Iona Gaels. He has been coaching St. John’s since March 2023 after the Red Storm fired former coach Mike Anderson.