Giovanni Fanta
College basketball broadcaster and reporter
On what would have been Lou Carnesecca’s one hundredth birthday weekend, Big East Conference coaches will collect to honor the legacy of one of many basketball-driven league’s founding fathers this weekend.
Throughout the weekend’s 5 convention video games, with St. John’s internet hosting a particular celebration of the late Carnesecca’s life on Saturday when the Red Storm hosts Butler at 2 PM ET on FS1, many coaches from across the league will probably be sporting sweaters honoring L Looie’s particular gear that he wore throughout his legendary run at St. John’s within the Seventies and Eighties.
When Carnesecca died at age 99 on Nov. 30, Big East commissioner Val Ackerman and senior affiliate commissioner of males’s basketball Dan Leibovitz, John Chaney’s former assistant at Temple and head coach at Hartford, instantly took motion . Conference leaders wished to discover a approach to honor certainly one of its founding fathers, a seven-time Big East regular-season and match champion who was, as FOX Sports analyst Bill Raftery put it, “universally liked.”
Leibovitz introduced the coaches collectively in a textual content chain, and the concept grew to become a actuality: Many coaches agreed to seek out an ’80s sweater, and so they all joined collectively to put on a commemorative pin despatched by the league to its colleges. Though there’s nice appreciation for all Carnesecca achieved: spending 24 years main the Johnnies and not using a shedding season, going 31-4 with Chris Mullin and Walter Berry in 1984-85 as certainly one of three Big East groups who landed within the Final Four and acquired the league’s Coach of the Year award 3 times, Carnesecca’s charisma and outgoing nature made him a larger-than-life determine in convention and faculty basketball who created a golden period in New York City within the Eighties.
St. John’s coach Rick Pitino, together with Kansas State coach Jerome Tang, honored Carnesecca on Dec. 7 by strolling out of the tunnel with a reproduction of Looie’s well-known sweater. After the Red Storm beat the Wildcats 88-71, the Basketball Hall of Famer hung his jersey at midcourt in Carnesecca’s reminiscence.
Here’s the schedule of Big East video games the place coaches pays tribute to Carnesecca this weekend:
Friday
- Xavier at Georgetown – 8pm ET, CBS Sports Network
- Creighton at no. 8 Marquette – 9pm ET, FS1
Saturday
- DePaul at Villanova – midday ET, FS1
- Butler in St. John’s – 2pm ET, FS1
Sunday
- Providence at no. 11 UConn – 2pm ET, NBC
John Fanta is a nationwide faculty basketball broadcaster and author for FOX Sports. He covers sports activities in a wide range of roles, from calling video games on FS1 to serving as a lead anchor on the BIG EAST digital community to offering commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him to @John_Fanta.
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