St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino and Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl were both named the AP Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year, the first tie in the 58-year history of the award.
Pearl and Pitino both received 20 votes from a national media panel that selects the Top 25 during the regular season. Other coaches who received votes for the award include Louisville’s Pat Kelsey (eight votes), Duke’s Jon Scheyer (five votes), and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo (three votes).
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Rick Pitino
This is the first time in Pitino’s illustrious career that he has been named the AP Coach of the Year. He is the sixth-ever coach from the Big East conference to win the award and the first to do so since Shaka Smart did it with Marquette in 2023.
A basketball coach with 37 years of experience. Pitino has won two National Championships and has reached the Final Four seven times.
“I have been blessed for a long period of time — fifty-plus years of coaching,” Pitino told the Associated Press. “It’s going to stop, so why not have a blast? Why not get the most out of it? Laugh, have fun, get great experiences.”
Bruce Pearl and Rick Pitino sharing AP Coach of the Year honors pic.twitter.com/eluK1JdMb0
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) April 4, 2025
In just his second year as the head coach of St. John’s, Pitino led the Red Storm to a 31-5 record, which is tied for the most wins in a single season in the program’s 118-year history. Not only did the Red Storm finish as the Big East regular-season champions, but they also won the Big East Conference Tournament for the first time in 25 years.
Under Pitino’s leadership, the Johnnies earned their first NCAA Tournament berth in six years, making him the first college basketball coach in NCAA history to lead six different programs to the tournament. They also won their first NCAA Tournament game this year, advancing to the Round of 32 for the first time since 2000.
Bruce Pearl
This marks Bruce Pearl’s first time winning the AP Coach of the Year award. Before this, he had earned nine Conference-based Coach of the Year awards (four in the Southeastern Conference, three in the Horizon League, and two in the Great Lakes Valley Conference).
“You want to be on a great team, you’ve got to make sacrifices,” Pearl said. “You’ve got to share, and you’ve got to hold each other accountable. I think that’s a big part of what this locker room is all about. This is a team of faith.”
With 21 years of coaching experience, Pearl was originally stationed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he led the program to its first Division I NCAA Tournament appearance in 2003. He then moved on to coach at the University of Tennessee, where he led the Volunteers to six straight NCAA Tournament berths. After he had stepped away from coaching for three years due to NCAA violations, Pearl was eventually hired as the head coach of the Auburn Tigers in 2014, where he remains today.
Dylan Cardwell brought Bruce Pearl to tears with this: “We want to win this national championship for Bruce Pearl. We want to win it for Auburn and we want to win it for the guy who has made this program the special program that it is.” pic.twitter.com/ZzXI4lc5wb
— John Fanta (@John_Fanta) April 4, 2025
During his 11-year tenure with the Tigers, he has earned six NCAA Tournament berths while winning the conference’s regular-season championship three times and the SEC Tournament twice. He has also managed to lead Auburn to two Final Four appearances during his time with the Tigers in 2019 and this year.
Not only did he lead the Tigers to the Final Four this season, but Auburn also earned the number-one overall seed in the NCAA Tournament after the Tigers finished the regular season with a 28-5 record. Their 32-5 record this year is the winningest season in the program’s 119-year history.
