Why are Big East basketball coaches wearing sweaters? League honors late Lou Carnesecca

craig meyer, usa today network

Sat, Jan 4, 2025, 7:04 a.m.·4 min read

On-court style for men’s college basketball coaches has changed significantly in recent years.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, either out of caution or a desire for comfort in largely empty arenas, coaches increasingly ditched suits and ties in favor of more casual attire like quarter-zips and polos.

This weekend, though, coaches in the Big East will adopt a slightly different look. With a new year will come new sartorial choices.

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As the league continues the early stages of conference play this weekend, many of the Big East's 11 head coaches will be wearing different kinds of sweaters rather than their traditional game-day getups.

Why are they doing it? Here’s what you need to know about Big East basketball coaches wearing sweaters:

Why are Big East basketball coaches wearing sweaters?

Basketball coaches across the Big East are wearing sweaters this weekend as a tribute to legendary St. John’s coach Lou Carnesecca, who died last November.

Sunday would have been Carnesecca’s 100th birthday.

The more ridiculous the better. Miller and Cooley setting a high bar for the weekend, hell yes pic.twitter.com/eY4w9YDlTB
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) January 4, 2025

In addition to sweaters, coaches will wear pins reading “Lou” on them, with a blue, red and brown background styled after one of Carnesecca’s most famous sweaters.

Dan Leibovitz, the Big East’s senior associate commissioner for men’s basketball, said that the conference “scheduled this as a celebration of his tremendous career and life well-lived.”

@BIGEASTMBB coaches will honor Coach Lou Carnesecca this weekend. Will see these pins on sidelines. Many, if not all, head coaches will be wearing sweaters.

Tomorrow would have been Coach’s 100th. We scheduled this as a celebration of his tremendous career and life well-lived. pic.twitter.com/nuNhp42Skh
— Dan Leibovitz (@DL_BIGEAST) January 3, 2025

Over the course of his decorated coaching career at St. John’s, Carnesecca became known for the various sweaters he would wear while pacing the sideline.

The most well-known item of his collection was the sweater that the pins are modeled after – a brown sweater with a red and blue “V” pattern on the front. Carnesecca wore the sweater during much of a 19-game winning streak in 1985, a season that would end with St. John’s making the Final Four for the second time in program history. The streak came to an end with an 85-69 loss to Georgetown in Madison Square Garden, a game in which Hoyas coach John Thompson came out on the court and opened up his suit jacket to reveal he was wearing a shirt made to look identical to Carnesecca's sweater. It’s popularly known as “the Sweater Game.”

More: Remembering Lou Carnesecca, John Thompson and the legendary 'sweater game'

In a game last December against Kansas State, the first game for St. John’s since Carnesecca’s death, Red Storm coach Rick Pitino wore a sweater he had tailored after Carnesecca’s. Following the game, he laid it down on the midcourt logo at Carnesecca Arena.

Though the sweaters came to define him from an aesthetic standpoint, Carnesecca’s legacy went well beyond his personal fashion.

During his 24 years at St. John’s, Carnesecca amassed a record of 526-200 and took the Red Storm to the NCAA Tournament 18 times. More than 30 years after his retirement following the 1991-92 season, he remains the winningest coach in school history.