Steve Masiello may not be leaving Manhattan after all.
Less than a week ago, the 36-year-old coach nearly led Manhattan — in its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 10 years — to a stunning upset over defending national champion Louisville, prompting South Florida to offer Masiello its vacant head coaching position. But early Wednesday morning, the offer was reportedly revoked, according to the Tampa Tribune.
The Tribune cites a “previously undetected discrepancy in his background check,” which was discovered by Eastman & Beaudine, a search firm that was paid $60,000 by South Florida to find coaching candidates.
The discrepancy: Masiello never graduated from the University of Kentucky, as indicated on his résumé and his bio on the websites of the schools where he previously coached, according to ESPN.
Rick Pitino, Masiello’s mentor and former coach at Kentucky, told ESPN: “If it’s accurate, I’m shocked by it. I had no idea. I left the previous year and he was on track to graduate.”
Masiello reportedly had agreed to a deal, which was set for five years and worth more than $1 million per season, to replace Stan Heath, who was fired on March 14, after compiling a 97-130 record over seven seasons with the Bulls.
It is unclear how this may affect Masiello’s status at Manhattan.
On Tuesday morning, Masiello was following two South Florida players on Twitter — Corey Allen Jr. and Bo Zeigler — though he later un-followed them.
Allen tweeted:
“I’m liking what I’m hearing so far,” which Masiello favorited, before it was deleted.
Masiello just finished his third season as head coach at Manhattan, where he was an assistant for four years before working under Pitino as an assistant at Louisville for six seasons.
After taking over a six-win Manhattan team in 2011, Masiello’s first year as a head coach couldn’t have gone any better, as he led the Jaspers to the biggest turnaround in Division I. In his second season, he took an injury-plagued team within one win of the NCAA Tournament, before ending the school’s decade-long drought this month.
Though Masiello, a White Plains native, has strong ties to New York, Pitino — whose opinion carries enormous weight with Masiello — strongly endorsed the move after Louisville and Manhattan played last week, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
“[Masiello] said, ‘What do you think [about USF]?’ ” Pitino told the Times on Saturday in Orlando. “I said, ‘For you, it’s a grand slam.’”
Pitino cited South Florida’s move to the AAC from the Big East as the biggest reason why he believed the floundering basketball program finally could see some success.
The Bulls went 12-20 this season, winning just three games in conference, while Manhattan could drop from the top of the MAAC next season after losing its three most valuable players to graduation — George Beamon, Rhamel Brown and Michael Alvarado.