Known for his quick wit and garish sweaters, he took the New York City university to national basketball prominence over 24 seasons.
Lou Carnesecca, the Hall of Fame coach who took St. John’s University to national basketball prominence and who was known for his quick wit and colorful courtside persona, died on Saturday. He was 99.
His death was confirmed by Brian Browne, a spokesman for the university, who provided no other details.
When Carnesecca took over as the St. John’s head coach in 1965, the university, while rich in basketball tradition, played as an independent. It had begun a gradual move to the Jamaica section of Queens from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn 10 years earlier, and its Alumni Hall athletic building was only four years old.
With the founding of the Big East Conference in 1979, St. John’s began competing regularly against leading basketball programs.
Carnesecca took St. John’s to 18 N.C.A.A. championship tournaments and six N.I.T. tournaments, including the 1989 championship, and his teams won the Big East tournament championship in 1983 and 1986.
St. John’s won 526 games while losing 200 in Carnesecca’s two stints there, from 1965 to 1970 and then, after his three seasons coaching the New York (now Brooklyn) Nets in the old American Basketball Association, from 1973 to 1992.
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Source: Basketball - nytimes.com
