Former St. John’s University head coach Lou Carnesecca has passed away.
Carnesecca was 99 years old, and would have turned 100 on January 5.
In a career that ran from 1965-1970 and 1973-1992, Carnesecca, a 1992 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, posted a record of 526-200, all at St. John’s.
He led his group in 1985 to the Final Four, winning 31 games with a roster that included Chris Mullin, Walter Berry (the 1986 Associated Press Player of the Year), Mark Jackson, and Bill Wennington. One of the tournament’s No. 1 seeds, they lost to Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown Hoyas, another No. 1, 77-69 in the national semifinal. The Redmen (as they were known until 1994) won 31 games once again in 1985-1986, making the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Carnesecca garnered Big East Coach of the Year honors three times (1983, 1985, 1986), and led his team to a 112-65 record in the Big East throughout his tenure at the school. He was six times named, by the New York Basketball Writers Association, as Metropolitan Coach of the Year and in 1983 and 1985 he was named National Coach of the Year by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. Eighteen times his teams competed in the NCAA Tournament, and eighteen times his teams eclipsed 20 wins. They were a postseason team every year that he served as head coach.
During his run, the Big East was home to the likes of John Thompson (Georgetown), Jim Boeheim (Syracuse), Jim Calhoun (Connecticut) and Rollie Massimino (Villanova) in what was truly the golden age of the Big East and in some ways, the golden age of all of college basketball. Each of the above four are Hall of Famers at the college level or professional level, with Massimino inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.
From 1970-1973, between his St. John’s stints, Carnesecca coached the ABA’s New York Nets, guiding a team led by Hall of Famer Rick Barry to the 1972 ABA Finals. After his collegiate coaching career, he served as an assistant to the university’s president for over 30 years.
R.I.P., Lou Carnesecca.
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