By ADAM ZAGORIA
ALBANY — Steve Masiello considers Rick Pitino a second father figure and plans to coach alongside him next season — wherever Pitino is.
Pitino, 70, has been heavily linked to the St. John’s opening for some time now.
“My intention is to be with coach and that’s something him and I have spoken about, so my plan is to be with coach,” Masiello told ZAGSBLOG ahead of No. 13 Iona’s game with No. 4 UConn here Friday in the NCAA Tournament.
Steve Masiello will be on Rick Pitino's staff again next season no matter where Pitino is, per sources.
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) March 12, 2023
Masiello was fired at Manhattan just before the season began and then Rick added him to his staff as Director of Operation
Manhattan fired Masiello two weeks before the start of the season, and he and Pitino were having lunch “within an hour of being fired,” Masiello said. They go back to the days when Masiello was Pitino’s ball boy with the Knicks in the 1980s.
“Since 1989, he’s been with me and I’m forever grateful of that,” said Masiello, now the Iona Director of Operations.
He added: “When you lose your job for whatever reasons, sometimes it takes people a year. I was back in six days because of him.”
Pitino said in November getting fired is “the loneliest damn thing” and “is an awful, awful experience.”
“When I was fired (at Louisville in 2017), I was speaking to my team, they’re crying hysterically, I’m crying hysterically,” he said. “I’m there 17 years, I go to get my personal belongings, and my office was locked. They locked me out of my office after 17 years.”
“I don’t want Steve to go through what I went through, and he’s not going to,” he said.
There was some speculation that Pitino brought Masiello aboard as a potential successor should he leave for St. John’s or another job. But the plan now is for them to be together next season — at Iona, St. John’s or wherever Pitino is.
Masiello said he could see Pitino coaching another decade, to which Pitino said, “I hope I can coach for another 12 years, but I’ll take 6 or 7.”
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