Rick Pitino Defeats Son Richard to Secure 900th Career Win as St. John's Beats Xavier

Rick Pitino secured the 900th win of his collegiate coaching career Saturday with the St. John's Red Storm beating the Xavier Musketeers 88-83 on the road.

In order to reach the historic milestone, Pitino defeated his son, Richard Pitino, who is in the midst of his first season as the head coach at Xavier.

During a postgame interview, the elder Pitino was asked what he has left to achieve after winning 900 games, and he responded by saying, "1,000!"

With the win, St. John's improved to 15-5 on the season, and it is second in the Big East with an 8-1 mark, trailing only UConn.

Pitino is now only the fourth coach in history to win at least 900 games for Division I men's basketball programs. Per John Leuzzi and Ehsan Kassim of USA Today, Pitino trails only Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim and Roy Williams on the all-time list.

With four more wins, Pitino will surpass Williams for third place. Krzyzewski and Boeheim are the only two coaches to reach the 1,000-win mark at the Division I level.

Before becoming the head coach at St. John's in 2023, the 73-year-old Pitino had stints at Hawai'i, Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville and Iona.

Pitino won national titles at Kentucky and Louisville, although the national title he won with Louisville in 2013 was technically vacated by the NCAA due to recruiting violations.

In total, Louisville had to vacate 123 wins from Pitino's tenure, giving him 777 career wins based on the NCAA's official records. However, Saturday marked the 900th on-court win of his Hall of Fame career.

Louisville fired Pitino in 2017 due to the recruiting scandal, which led to him coaching in Greece from 2018 to 2020.

Pitino returned to college basketball in 2020, leading Iona to a pair of NCAA tournament appearances over his three seasons at the school.

When Pitino took the head coaching job at St. John's, the program had gone four consecutive seasons without an NCAA tournament appearance. After going 20-13 in his first season, Pitino improved to 31-5 last season and took the Red Storm to the second round of the NCAA tourney.

Pitino has St. John's trending toward another NCAA tournament berth this season, and it is among the top contenders to win the Big East title as well after winning both the Big East regular-season and tournament championships last season.

While Pitino will likely have to continue coaching at a high level for three to five more seasons in order to reach his goal of 1,000 wins, that may not be outside the realm of possibility given the Red Storm's recent success.