![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/st-johns-red-storm-head-124554138.jpg\")
St. John\u2019s Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino in the first half during a Sweet Sixteen game of the East Regional of the men\u2019s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Capital One Arena. Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/p>\nSt. John\u2019s and Rick Pitino are in agreement on a restructured contract that will add a year to his current deal, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n
The two sides have been talking for quite some time on the deal, which will include a significant pay raise not only for Pitino \u2014 making him the league\u2019s second-highest-paid coach after Connecticut\u2019s Dan Hurley \u2014 but also for his entire coaching staff. <\/p>\n
The latter was the final sticking point to the deal. Hurley makes a base of $8.33 million per season. Pitino will earn in the ballpark of $6 million annually, sources said.<\/p>\n
Entering the season, The Post reported that Pitino was the sixth-highest-paid coach in the Big East. The initial deal was worth roughly $20 million over six years, sources said. <\/p>\n
St. John\u2019s president Fr. Brian Shanley said at the time he would do \u201ceverything I can to keep Rick happy,\u201d and athletic director Ed Kull made similar comments. They were true to their word.<\/p>\n
St. John\u2019s Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino in the first half during a Sweet Sixteen game of the East Regional of the men\u2019s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Capital One Arena. Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Reached by The Post, Pitino said he is going to take some time over the next week to make sure he wants to continue coaching. But all indications are that it is something he plans to continue doing, and he wouldn\u2019t have signed the new deal otherwise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what\u2019s been accomplished, from a crowd standpoint, from a standpoint of building national profile, is great for both \u2014 for the coaching staff as well as them, it\u2019s been a great marriage,\u201d Pitino said during the Big East Tournament.<\/p>\n
Pitino has turned around St. John\u2019s in three years, leading the program to back-to-back outright Big East regular-season titles and consecutive Big East Tournament crowns. Both were program firsts. <\/p>\n
This March, the Johnnies reached the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1999 before losing to overall No. 1 seed Duke 80-75 on Friday night. They also won 30 games in back-to-back seasons for the first time since the 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons.<\/p>\n
Several times this year, Pitino has said it will either be St. John\u2019s or retirement, and he certainly isn\u2019t slowing down. <\/p>\n
After winning his 900th game this year, he said he could envision reaching 1,000 if he remains healthy. That was part of the impetus for the school adding an extra year to the deal, sources said.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYour weekly dispatch from the No. 1 source on the Johnnies\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside St. John’s by Zach Braziller, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting 900 is a nice thing certainly, but getting 1,000 would be a lot better,\u201d Pitino said in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat means I\u2019ve got to be blessed with good health, good players and just keep recruiting, and the better you recruit, the better coach I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
This will be a critical offseason for the Johnnies, who will lose the starting frontcourt of Zuby Ejiofor, Dillon Mitchell and Bryce Hopkins. Key pieces like Dylan Darling, Joson Sanon and Ruben Prey are expected to return, and billionaire booster Mike Repole is going to do his best financially to help Pitino reload.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited not only for this year but also next year,\u201d Repole said in a video posted to his X account. \u201cI\u2019ve already committed my pledge to [athletics director] Ed Kull and the athletic department and Rick Pitino and the team for next year. We don\u2019t want this to be a one- or two-year thing. We want to build a dynasty here for the next five to 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. John\u2019s and Rick Pitino are in agreement on a restructured contract that will add a year to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4044,14601,99,14602],"class_list":{"0":"post-553400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-college-basketball","9":"tag-rick-pitino","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-st-johns-red-storm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}