‘He’s a great salesman.’ New Pitino recruit eager to take some Kentucky to New York.
Richie Farmer. John Pelphrey. Elisha Justice.
Rick Pitino over his career has had plenty of success recruiting and developing basketball players from eastern Kentucky. That’s part of the reason why Trey James, a 6-foot-10 senior-to-be at Martin County High School, will play college basketball for the former UK and Louisville head coach at Iona College.
James, who led the Cardinals to the 15th Region title as a junior in March, committed to Iona following a phone conversation with Pitino on Friday afternoon, Martin County head coach Jason James told the Herald-Leader. Pitino, who formerly coached the Wildcats (1996) and Cardinals (2013) to NCAA championships, was named head coach of the Gaels in March.
James is the first player from the state of Kentucky to commit to Pitino while at Iona and is the Gaels’ first commitment as part of the 2021 recruiting class. James was committed to Wake Forest prior to that school’s firing of Danny Manning, and since reopening his recruitment had reported offers from Iowa, Tennessee Tech, Appalachian State and Elon.
Iona was among the immediate suitors to reach out when James decommitted. Assistant coach Tom Abatemarco — who has coached more than 40 years and was part of Jim Valvano’s staff at N.C. State — stayed in close contact with him over the last few months, and Pitino last week got more directly involved in his recruitment to help seal the deal.
Before a Zoom conference call with Pitino and his family, James said he was “50-50” between Iona and Iowa.
“Everybody knows he’s the best at player development,” James said. “…. He says he can get me to the NBA, and if he can’t get me to the NBA he’ll get me to the EuroLeague. He has the connections to make it happen and says I’ll be able to play as long as I want to. …
“Talking to Coach Pitino, I don’t know how he doesn’t talk every single player in the country to come and play for him. … He’s a great salesman.”
James leans more toward U of L than UK when it comes to that rivalry because Louisville’s teams were easier to get to know and follow year-to-year; Kentucky’s one-and-done philosophy makes it harder to identify with that program, he said.
He also never knew Pitino as anything other than Louisville’s coach; he was born well after his time at UK.
“Seeing him on TV all these years, it’s fun to get phone calls from him,” James said. “It felt so crazy to me at first.”
Pitino expressed his admiration for Kentucky, particularly James’ corner of the state, during their calls.
“Spending 25 years of his life over here in the state, he said, really made him want to get another kid from here,” James said.
James plans on selling other Kentucky recruits on the prospect of joining him at Iona, which is located in New Rochelle, N.Y. James has never visited the campus — the COVID-19 pandemic has kept him and other undecided recruits from visiting anywhere — but he played in an AAU event in the city once. He described it as being comparable to Bowling Green, and expects the transition won’t be too difficult.
Iona has played in 14 NCAA tournaments and has won just one game. It is a founding member of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference and has won more MAAC titles (12) than any other program, including the last four.
Pitino, who hasn’t coached college basketball since the 2016-17 season, is pitching a vision of Iona as a Final Four and national championship contender. He has led three different programs to at least one Final Four (Providence, UK and U of L), but making that happen at a school the size of Iona would be a crowning achievement.
James is eager to do what he can to make it a reality.
“It’s always nice being an underdog,” James said. “I’d rather be on the team that nobody expects to win than be on the team that everybody says, ‘Yea, they should’ve won it.’”
