In Memory

In the annals of great New York City basketball characters, Lou Carnesecca ranks among the best and most colorful. A product of New York, Carnesecca spent his entire career coaching in the Big Apple, helping to reinforce New York City’s basketball stature.

Lou Carnesecca passed away on November 30, 2024. He was 99 years old. The man known as Looie was quick to tell a story, the first to offer help to a friend, and the finest of gentlemen.

John Doleva, President & CEO of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, remembered Carnesecca as the guy everyone wanted to be around at Hall of Fame events. “Lou Carnesecca had a way of telling a story that everyone wanted to get in on. His recall of details both big and small was unmatched,” according to Doleva.

When Carnesecca assumed the position of head coach at St. John’s University in 1965 after the retirement of the legendary Joe Lapchick, the team was coming off a 21-8 season and still very much a top team. Over the next five seasons, Carnesecca kept them in the national conversation including twice reaching the NCAA Tournament Regional Semifinals. After a three-year hiatus with the ABA’s New York Nets, Carnesecca returned to St. John’s and, over the next 19 seasons, kept the team in the national spotlight.

Largely behind local players, Carnesecca built a top team. During the 1980s, the Big East Conference was college basketball’s toughest conference, and with Carnesecca’s colorful sweaters and animated personality, St. John’s was front and center. Coaching against such luminaries as John Thompson at Georgetown, Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, Rick Pitino at Providence College, PJ Carlesimo at Seton Hall, and Jim Calhoun at Connecticut, Carnesecca led St. John’s to a 112-65 record while winning five Big East regular season titles and three Big East Tournament championships.

The 1984-85 season was his crowning achievement as he guided the Red Storm to the Final Four behind four future NBA players in Chris Mullin, Walter Berry, Mark Jackson, and Bill Wennington. It marked the first season that the NCAA Tournament was expanded to 64 teams, and St. John’s emerged triumphant from a loaded West Region.

During his tenure, he led the Johnnies to 526 wins in 24 seasons. The team averaged 22 wins a season, including back-to-back 30-win seasons in 1985 and 1986, reached the post-season in every season he coached, and won 20 or more games in a season on 18 occasions. He guided the team to 18 NCAA Tournaments and six National Invitation Tournaments, including two NCAA Tournament Regional Finals (1979, 1991). He also led the team to eight ECAC Holiday Festival titles at Madison Square Garden, including in 1987 when the Red Storm defeated eventual national champion Kansas to claim the program’s tenth overall Holiday Festival crown.

His efforts earned him many coaching accolades including three Big East Coach of the Year honors, six Metropolitan Coach of the Year awards by the New York Basketball Writers Association, and two National Coach of the Year awards in 1983 and 1985 by the USBWA. He was named the Kodak NIT Man of the Year in 1985.

Throughout his long and prosperous life, Carnesecca stayed close to St. John’s, the only school for which he worked. He cherished his relationships with his players and the school community.

“Victories, defeats, they’ll soon be forgotten, but the relationships that you build with the people you come into contact with will last a lifetime,” Carnesecca said. “So, it’s important we remember that. The game is important, but it’s only a small part of your life.”
 
Lou Carnesecca was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame with the Class of 1992.