St. John’s has removed men’s basketball general manager Matt Abdelmassih from his position and has finalized the end of his employment with the university, multiple sources told Newsday.
Athletic director Ed Kull confirmed Newsday’s reporting saying, “We’ve parted ways,” but did not elaborate further. A source told Newsday, “He’s done at St. John’s.” Another source described the end of Abdelmassih’s tenure as “not mutual.”
Kull confirmed last week that Abdelmassih has been on administrative leave since mid-December. Multiple sources said the school has been reviewing Abdelmassih’s financial transactions in his capacity as the Red Storm GM.
Abdelmassih, reached by Newsday Tuesday evening, confirmed he is no longer employed by the university, but would not comment further.
“Look, it’s never good to see people go, but in the eyes of the university it was very warranted,” St. John’s coach Rick Pitino said after the Red Storm’s 92-68 win over Marquette Tuesday night at the Garden.
Pitino added that he knew this was coming, but only learned of the final decision on Abdelmassih Tuesday.
“It’s out of my hands — I found out tonight,” he said. “All I was told four days ago is, look for another general manager. They said to me, ‘don’t ask any questions.’ I said, ‘Okay — I’ll look for one.’ It’s really not a big deal.”
Pitino has begun the process of seeking a new general manager. One potential candidate could be Tom Ostrom, who’s been a Division I assistant coach for a quarter century, including a seven-year stint at Florida under Rick Pitino protégé Billy Donovan. Ostrom attended Tuesday night’s Red Storm game.
“Well, I got three guys in mind to be honest with you and one’s here today,” Pitino said, “but I’m going to look at two other guys.”
Ostrom was an assistant coach under Darian DeVries the past three seasons, first at Drake and then at West Virginia in the 2024-25 season. He also has been an assistant coach at Dayton and Indiana under head coach Archie Miller and at South Alabama and Arkansas under head coach John Pelfrey.
Abdelmassih’s role with the basketball program had been building the team’s roster by helping the coaching staff identify talent that may be available to the Red Storm, negotiating with players and their agents and getting commitments. He was instrumental in helping Pitino and his staff assemble the 2024-25 team that won 31 games, won the Big East regular season and tournament championships and earned a No. 2 seeding in the NCAA Tournament.
Pitino makes all final decisions regarding which transfer candidates the program seeks to bring in. Abdelmassih was St. John’s representative in negotiations with players and their agents.
Pitino appeared on ESPN’s “College Game Day” at the Final Four last April and was asked about the mechanism St. John’s uses to cull the transfer portal and replied, “It really doesn’t matter to me what the cost of a player is going to be — I really try not to. We have a general manager that does that. I tell him, ‘Go raise the money — I don’t even want to know what you’re paying him — just make sure we get him.’ ”
Abdelmassih, who graduated from St. John’s in 2007, has had three separate stints with the basketball program.
He was student-manager for three years when Norm Roberts was the coach. He returned as part of the men’s basketball staff and then as an assistant coach when Chris Mullin was hired as head coach before the 2015-16 season. He left when Mullin and the school parted ways following the 2018-19 season. Abdelmassih returned to St. John’s as the GM before the 2023-24 season.
Abdelmassih earned a reputation as one of the pioneers of the strategy of building college basketball teams via transfers, going back even before the name, image and likeness era, beginning with his work at Iowa State for head coach Fred Hoiberg.
He worked as an assistant coach for Hoiberg when the Cyclones won Big 12 Tournament titles in 2014 and 2015 and rejoined him in 2019 at Nebraska. In the middle of the 2022-23 season, The Omaha World-Herald reported Abdelmassih took a leave from the Cornhuskers staff in December 2022 and later in the season the school announced it had “parted ways” with him.
The group of transfers on the current St. John’s team was lauded as the best transfer class in the country, according to 247sports.com. The quality of the players brought in was likely the biggest contributing factor to the team opening the season at No. 5 in the national rankings. However, the team has fallen from the national rankings and is 12-5 and 5-1 in Big East play.
“They didn’t ask me my opinion and I didn’t give it because they didn’t [want it],” Pitino said of Abdelmassih’s dismissal. “And in their defense, they didn’t want to bother me. They didn’t want to distract me right now and I appreciate that.
“I’m disappointed that somebody will lose a job with four young kids, yes, but it’s not a big deal in terms of our basketball program. We move on [and] go find someone else.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
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