CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Coaching legend Rollie Massimino, the owner of over 700 wins at the NCAA and NAIA levels, has been elected to the College Basketball Hall of Fame. Massimino has some strong ties to America East basketball as both a player and a coach. He was a three-year letter winner at Vermont and later spent two seasons with Stony Brook as the men’s head coach.
Massimino, who took the 1969-70 Seawolves to the NCAA Division II tournament, went on to have a legendary coaching career. His résumé includes leading Villanova to a national championship over Georgetown in 1985, a win that stands among the greatest upsets in the history of college basketball. The Wildcats were a No. 8 seed in the tournament that year and shot 78.6 percent to beat the heavily favored Hoyas. Massimino’s squad is still the lowest seed to win the NCAA tournament.
Over the years, several other coaches have had success in the America East before going on to Final Fours and national championships. Two former coaches have advanced to men’s and women’s Final Four in 2013, which will take place April 6-9 in Atlanta, Ga. and New Orleans, La., respectively.
Rick Pitino led the University of Louisville to its second consecutive Final Four in 2013 and third in the past nine years. The only coach in NCAA history to take three different programs to the Final Four (Providence, Kentucky), Pitino got his start as a head coach with Boston University. Pitino led the Terriers to a 91-51 record in his five years as head coach and won the 1983 conference championship after tying for the regular season title with New Hampshire.
In just her second year as the women’s head coach at the University of California Berkeley, Lindsay Gottlieb has guided the Golden Bears to the Final Four. Before becoming a head coach, Gottlieb spent a year as an assistant coach at New Hampshire. While she was on the sidelines in 2001-02 the Wildcats went 9-7 in the regular season and upset No. 3 Binghamton as the No. 6 seed in the America East Championship quarterfinals.
Pitino is one of four former America East head coaches to lead their current squads to this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Mike Brey (Notre Dame), John Giannini (La Salle) and Jay Wright (Villanova) are the other three. The recently retired Jim Calhoun, who won a league-record five titles at Northeastern, took the University of Connecticut to four Final Fours and won three national titles.
On the women’s side, a pair of former America East head coaches joined Gottlieb in the 2013 NCAA tournament. Joanne Palombo-McCallie won four consecutive conference titles (1995-1998) while at Maine and most recently led Duke University to this year’s Elite Eight. Currently the head coach at the Purdue University, Sharon Versyp won the America East regular season with Maine in 1994 and took the Boilermakers to the round of 32 this season.