The Xavier Musketeers begin a new era with a new head coach while the Marist Red Foxes look for another 20-win season under an established coach when the two teams open their seasons on Monday night in Cincinnati.
It figures to be a rebuilding season in Cincinnati for Xavier head coach Richard Pitino. He replaced Sean Miller, who left for the Texas Longhorns after Xavier beat them 86-80 in the First Four of the NCAA Tournament last March in Dayton, Ohio.. Xavier (22-12, 13-7 Big East) won its final seven regular-season games to earn an at-large bid and lost to sixth-seeded Illinois 86-73 in the first round.
Pitino, the son of St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino, comes to Xavier after eight seasons at Minnesota and four more at New Mexico. Pitino will now get the chance to coach against his father at least twice a season in the Big East.
Pitino is starting from scratch at Xavier, with no returnees among 12 scholarship players. Only guard Roddie Anderson III came back after a redshirt season in 2024-25 and has two years of eligibility remaining. Key addition Gabriel Pozzato, a sophomore forward who transferred from Evansville, is still recovering from a meniscus injury this summer.
“You gotta get everybody on the same page,” Pitino said. “You have to be clear about what your terminology is, how we’re gonna operate on a daily basis, this is what we’re gonna call switching a ball screen, hedging or offensive concepts. When you’re starting the way we are, we’re starting from scratch.”
Marist, under eighth-year coach John Dunne, started 20-5 last season before dropping its final four games of the regular season and its first-round game in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament, missing the postseason altogether. The Red Foxes finished 20-10, 13-7 in the MAAC.
“We’ve got a lot of retention,” Dunne said of his roster. “We got a lot of guys that are returning, that aren’t happy with the way the season ended last year. So they came in, you know, this summer with a with a fire in their belly.”
Dunne received a multi-year contract extension last spring after winning 20 games for just the fifth time in program history, and for the first time since 2006-07.
Marist is led by guards Elijah Lewis and Jadin Collins-Roberts, both named preseason All-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Lewis was a second-team selection, and Collins-Roberts was named to the third team.
