Rick Pitino was appreciative to finally be back on a collegiate sideline Monday night, even if the new Iona coach’s first NCAA game since his 2017 firing by Louisville was spoiled by a 22-point loss to Seton Hall at Prudential Center.
The 68-year-old Hall of Famer — and the only coach in NCAA history to lead three schools to the Final Four (Providence, Kentucky and Louisville) — said Tuesday in a phone interview that the “most noticeable” difference in his return from his previous four decades in coaching was the lack of fans in the arena due to COVID-19.
“Very different. It’s an eerie feeling, it’s almost like you’re scrimmaging, except that you’re playing a real game,” Pitino told The Post. “You hear everybody’s voices and it’s just totally different. It’s an eerie feeling not having fans. You don’t even see the announcers, you don’t say hello to the referees. It was totally different.”
Games later this week against Merrimack (Thursday) and Hofstra (Saturday) remain on “as far as we know,” Pitino said. But the Gaels already have been affected greatly by the pandemic, including Pitino having his initially expected debut Nov. 25 at Fordham — and three other games — canceled. The MAAC also announced Tuesday that Iona’s two games Dec. 11-12 against Monmouth have been rescheduled for Feb. 26-27.
Despite a recent two-week quarantine for his team because of a positive COVID-19 test, Pitino agreed Saturday to face Seton Hall — coached by his former assistant and former Iona head coach Kevin Willard — with the proviso that the Pirates will come to Madison Square Garden for a game next season.
Without two injured starters, senior point guard Asante Gist and 7-foot-1 sophomore Osborn Shema, the Gaels led by as many as nine points late in the first half before the Hall outscored them 51-27 after intermission.
“It was a crazy time, we just got out of quarantine and I knew half my team was not in favor of playing the game,” Pitino said. “They said, ‘Coach, we’re not in shape.’ I said, ‘Look, we may not even be able to play 15 games this year, let’s just play it just to get some experience.’ So it was good for that.”
Pitino has been an outspoken proponent of pushing the season back until March and holding a delayed NCAA Tournament featuring all Division I teams in what he calls “May Madness.”
He reiterated that suggestion Tuesday, but the Long Island native also is eager to find out if his team — with more than a dozen new players — can come out of the MAAC and reach a traditional 68-team field in his first season in New Rochelle.
Iona had reached four consecutive NCAA tournaments under since-retired Tim Cluess from 2016-2019 before slogging through a 12-17 season last year under interim replacement Tra Arnold.
“I have to learn the league, but I do think Iona is a sleeping giant,” Pitino said. “And I judge that by some of the guys I can recruit now. I do believe in the Gonzaga model of recruiting, the St. Mary’s model of recruiting, that 40 to 50 percent of your team has to be foreign players.
“I don’t know if we can do a Gonzaga, but I know we can do a St. Mary’s, and I know we can build it to become one of the strongest programs on the East Coast. But that’s going to take great recruiting and meticulous player development, and those two things I think we’re off to a great start. [Monday] night, I saw some good things and I saw some things that definitely need to improve for us to be a better team and we’re going to work on that.”