Dylan Darling's first basket of the game is a layup as time expires to win it for St. John's in dramatic fashion. (0:49)
This St. John's team can't shoot.
The Red Storm are 182nd nationally in field goal percentage (45.2) and 225th from 3-point range (33.2).
It doesn't seem to matter. Rick Pitino's team (30-6) has been opportunistic, physical and fearless in reaching the Sweet 16, where it will play Duke on Friday.
It is reminiscent of Pitino's 2012-13 Louisville team that shot just 33.3% from behind the arc (216th nationally) yet won the national title. It's a far cry, however, from his underdog 1987 Providence team, which reached the Final Four thanks to his then-revolutionary idea of prioritizing the newly created 3-pointer. Those Friars hit 42.2% of them.
Pitino can win one way, or the other, or back again; from the Camelot of Kentucky to the late-career rehab of Iona College.
The years change, the teams change. The players, style of play, rules, roster construction, and even the cuts of his neatly tailored suits change.
One thing remains constant.
The case for Rick Pitino as the greatest men's college basketball coach of all time takes some contorting, but each year it gains credence. The 73-year-old coached his first game 50 years ago, in 1976 as an interim at Hawai'i. He now appears better than ever.
Pitino's 915 victories, .743 winning percentage and two national titles will never compare numerically to, say, Mike Krzyzewski's 1,202 victories, Adolph Rupp's .822 win percentage or John Wooden's 10 championships.
Part of that is by choice -- Pitino spent eight seasons in the NBA, including six as head coach in New York and Boston. He also had various NCAA and personal scandals that made him a temporary pariah and, to some, permanently ruined his reputation.
His legacy will always be linked to scandal. He had that Louisville national title, along with 123 victories, "vacated" by the NCAA as a result of its investigation into allegations that a staffer provided escorts at on-campus parties for players and recruits. The program was also at the center of a federal fraud and bribery case involving Adidas.
For a stretch, he was essentially professionally exiled to Greece, where he coached pro ball for two seasons, winning a couple of titles there, too.
Outside the lines, Pitino is one thing. Inside them, though, is a different story. Had he just stayed at Kentucky in 1997 rather than jump to the Celtics -- and kept his business in order (perhaps unlikely) -- there is no telling what his career totals would be. UK was rolling, after all, winning another national title under Tubby Smith the season after Pitino left.
But he has always bounced around, rescuing six bottomed-out programs (Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona and St. John's). In the season before his arrival, those teams were a combined 76-105 (.419).
He led five of them back to the NCAA tournament within two seasons (or in UK's situation, when a tournament ban concluded). At BU, it took four.
This isn't to punish other great coaches who built national powers and then stuck with it. Maintaining a juggernaut isn't simple and deserves credit. Yet, Pitino has proved it was him, not the institution, that made the difference.
Pitino has had talented players (especially the 1996 Kentucky national champions), but he has coached just three future NBA All-Stars -- Donovan Mitchell, Jamal Mashburn and Antoine Walker.
This isn't as impressive as Bob Knight, who won 902 games and three titles despite having just one player who would become an NBA All-Star (Isiah Thomas), but it's also not the Hall of Fame parade that Dean Smith (UNC), Krzyzewski (Duke) or Wooden (UCLA) had.
Pitino, a former New York point guard, is about basketball. He still conducts one-on-one development workouts. He still grinds game footage. He still finds the way to maximize what he has -- sometimes with a full-court press, sometimes the old 2-3 zone he learned as an assistant under Jim Boeheim.
He still communicates, harshly but honestly, in a way, for example, that not only empowers current guard Dylan Darling to confidently call for the ball in the waning seconds of Sunday's victory over Kansas, but allows Pitino to trust "Church Bells" -- a nickname stemming from Pitino's description of Darling's, uh, fearlessness -- to pull it off, even with his off hand.
Pitino's career has bridged multiple eras; not just in style of play (he coached pre-shot clock and 3-point line), but style of pay. As an assistant at Hawai'i in the mid-1970s, the NCAA dinged him for giving players coupons to McDonald's. Now, they can own a franchise.
Some of his best work has come recently.
He returned from his Greek purgatory to lead low-major Iona to two NCAAs in three seasons. At age 70, he took over St. John's, and won consecutive Big East regular-season and tournament titles. Now, the Red Storm are in the Sweet 16 for the first time this century.
The players still listen. They still defend. They still hustle. They still believe.
They still win, even when they can't shoot all that well.
That's a pure college basketball coach, perhaps the best there has ever been.
DW Deutsch 
