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Rick Pitino Under Fire for What He Did After St. John’s–UConn Game

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Evan Tiwari | Last updated Feb 26, 2026 7:51 PM ET

Rick Pitino was the center of attention on Wednesday night as his St. John's Red Storm suffered a 72-40 blowout loss at the hands of the UConn Huskies. The 15th-ranked Red Storm was held to just 20% shooting, and Pitino suffered his second-largest loss of his career as the head coach of an AP-ranked team.

Pitino took full blame for the 32-point loss and assured the fans that the team would move on from the devastating loss. He is now in the news for his conduct after the game, as USBWA (US Basketball Writers Association) president Matt Norlander called out Pitino for being a no-show during the post-game presser.

According to Norlander, Mike Vaccaro—a regular in the New York sports writing scene—was present at the post-game press conference to get a quote from Pitino, who didn't show up. Vaccaro uses a prosthetic leg and uses a crutch to help himself walk, and he couldn't make it in time to catch Pitino near the St. John's locker room. Norlander highlighted the chain of events through a series of posts on X.

As the president of the @USBWA, I feel compelled to vocalize something that really bothered me about last night. Vacc—an NYC sportswriting legend—has a prosthetic leg but nevertheless made the trip up to Hartford because of the stakes of the game. SJU-UConn is huge these days. https://t.co/BzvLOGygAW
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) February 26, 2026

Pitino did speak to a few reporters around the locker room area, as pointed out by Norlander in the thread. Norlander's gripe is that coaches should be more empathetic and professional when it comes to attending press conferences, no matter the result. While this incident should be treated in a different light, Pitino has a history of unruly incidents and displays of unprofessional behavior.

Pitino was embroiled in the 2015 Louisville scandal, which allegedly involved college players interacting with escorts and strippers. Pitino was found guilty of a Level 1 charge for failure to monitor his staff. He was eventually fired as Louisville's head coach after his name came up in an investigation into Adidas executives conspiring to bribe recruit Brian Bowen by paying his family $100,000.

While the news is just restricted to X for now, it remains to be seen if Pitino will be questioned about the incident by Vaccaro, Norlander or other members of the USBWA fraternity.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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