Tobin Anderson leaving FDU to replace Rick Pitino at Iona

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. (AP) — Tobin Anderson isleaving NCAA Cinderella FDU after one story-book season andreplacing Rick Pitino at Iona.

Iona athletic director Matt Glovaski announced the hiring onTuesday, just a day after Pitino left to take the job at St. John’sof the Big East Conference.

Anderson led the No. 16 seeded Knights to a win over No. 1Purdue in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament last week, onlythe second time a No. 16 seed has knocked off a top-seeded team.UMBC beat No. 1 Virginia in 2018.

“Iona University represents everything my family and I werelooking for in a school, a basketball program and a campusatmosphere,” Anderson said in a statement. “Our goal is to buildupon the tremendous tradition of Iona basketball and elevate theprogram to greater heights.”

Iona of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference was knocked outof this year’s tournament by UConn on Friday.

“We have long known him to be a fantastic coach and an evenbetter person,” Glovaski said. “Now, with his team’s impressive runin the NCAA tournament, everyone paying attention to March Madnessalso knows this. We’re delighted that he will be at the helm of ourmen’s basketball program.”

Anderson led FDU to a 21-16 overall record and went 10-6 inNortheast Conference play. The Knights lost to Merrimack in theconference title game, but got the NCAA berth because Merrimack wasineligible to compete as a transitioning school from DivisionII.

FDU, one of the shorter teams in the 68-team field, beat TexasSouthern in a First Four game and followed that with the upset overPurdue. Florida Atlantic knocked them out of the tournament onSunday.

FDU had a 4-22 record in 2021-22. Anderson was hired afterrunning a successful program at St. Thomas Aquinas, located lessthan 25 miles from Iona’s New Rochelle campus. In nine seasons, heturned the team into a perennial Top 25 program in Division IIafter inheriting a team that won just five games prior to hishire.

Anderson got his first taste of Division I coaching, serving asan assistant at Siena for two seasons from 2011–2013. Before histime at Siena, Anderson was a head coach at the Division III levelat Hamilton College and Clarkson University in upstate New York. Heworked as an assistant at Clarkson and Le Moyne College.

Anderson graduated from Wesleyan University in 1995.