Rick Pitino has excelled at coaching the St. John’s Red Storm, and on Thursday he gave his comedy chops a try during an appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
The first St. John’s coach to lead the Red Storm to an outright Big East regular-season title in 40 years appeared on the NBC late-night show, and joked about everything from how long he’s been coaching to agreeing to return to the show if the Johnnies with the NCAA Tournament.
He also shared a story about how he snuck away on his wedding night to interview for a job with legendary Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim.
While St. John’s players did not appear with Pitino during the interview with Fallon, they starred in a prerecorded sketch featuring them singing a sea shanty with Pitino donning his signature white suit.
Pitino is in his second season coaching at St. John’s, and the legendary coach said during the interview that he had been coaching basketball for 50 years. “I’m actually 101,” he said, which drew laughter from the crowd.
Pitino also drew a bit of laughter — and some shock — when Fallon asked him about the wedding night interview.
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Pitino confirmed its authenticity and revealed that after he found out that he had gotten the job, he told his wife that he had two pieces of “bad news.”
One was that the gig was in upstate New York and the other was that he started the next day, meaning they’d miss their honeymoon to Hawaii.
Pitino drew big applause when he walked onto the set and as he exited and waved to the crowd, with several members of the audience clearly excited to see the Red Storm coach.
The Johnnies are in the midst of a historic run this season having recorded a program record 17 Big East wins and becoming the first Red Storm team since 1984-85 to win the conference’s regular-season title outright.
The success has put big expectations on the Red Storm heading into the Big East Tournament next week and the NCAA Tournament later this month.
Fallon even extended an invite for Pitino to return “when” he wins March Madness.
Pitino accepted, but was quick to point out that the Johnnies were missing a few players due to injury.
Earlier in the week, during an interview on WFAN, he acknowledged that St. John’s could be a team that goes in either direction come tournament time.
“We are a type of basketball team, we can definitely lose in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, and we can definitely go to a Final Four,” Pitino said Monday. “We beat Providence by two both times, and Providence is not lighting the league on fire. That’s who we are: We are a gritty, hard-working team, and that’s what it should be in Year 2. Year 2 should be, you turned it around. The start was the first year, you turned it around the second year, you made the tournament.
“We know who we are. If we don’t just work every single possession, we can get beat because it’s proven out to be that way the whole season.”
The episode will air at 11:35 p.m. ET on NBC and will stream on Peacock on Friday.