The new era of St. John’s basketball also now includes a familiar face from the past.
Matt Abdelmassih, an assistant coach during Chris Mullin’s head-coaching tenure and a team manager in his days as a student, recently re-joined the school as the program’s new general manager, The Post has learned.
The 38-year-old Abdelmassih returns to Queens after spending the last year as an agent for Octagon.
St. John’s joins several schools, such as Villanova and Duke, in creating this new position in the Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) and transfer portal era.
“It feels like the stars aligned in terms of the current landscape of where things stand in college basketball,” Abdelmassih said in a phone interview. “The position is something I feel like I will thrive in and help the program and university grow to a level we all want it to be and expect it to be at.”
As an assistant coach for Iowa State, St. John’s and Nebraska, Abdelmassih was known as a top-notch recruiter adept at landing top transfers.
St. John’s last NCAA Tournament team in 2019 was fueled by transfers Justin Simon and Marvin Clark II whom Abdelmassih was responsible for landing.
The focus of his job, however, will be on the NIL end, coach Rick Pitino said.
Abdelmassih will work directly with St. John’s three collectives, Storm Marketing, Flat Top and Phocus, and serve as a go-between for players, their families, agents and the coaching staff.
He will be a fundraising organizer and be in charge of bringing new donors into the fold, enabling Pitino to take a step back from raising money for the program.
“Matt has a great love for St. John’s and he also knows a lot of St. John’s alumni,” Pitino said. “He’s going to cultivate more people, because in order to sustain the NIL we’ve got to quadruple the people giving.”
Pitino is bringing in a tax accountant and financial adviser to educate his players on how to handle their money.
Other than that, Pitino doesn’t want to deal directly with NIL figures for current players or recruits.
That will be a major part of the job for Abdelmassih.
“Right now the climate of where college basketball is, NIL is at the forefront of everything,” said Abdelmassih, who also worked in the NBA for the Timberwolves prior to coaching in college. “I have a unique level of experience that I can bring to the table that I feel gives us an advantage. My main focus for this first year is to make sure our collectives are clicking on all cylinders and the infrastructure internally is built to deal with changes going on in the NIL space.”
Over the last year, Abdelmassih represented two of the top big men in college basketball, Adama Sanogo of Connecticut and Cliff Omoruyi of Rutgers.
He wasn’t looking to get back into college basketball.
But once Pitino landed the job at St. John’s, and hired Steve Masiello as his associate head coach, they began using Abdelmassih as a helpful resource considering his prior coaching experience at St. John’s.
Masiello and Abdelmassih had a strong pre-existing relationship.
Eventually, the conversations turned to him coming back to his alma mater.
It made too much sense for him to pass up the opportunity.
“There is a part of me that certainly has a chip on my shoulder that there is unfinished business,” the Brooklyn native said. “Being a part of what Rick Pitino is building is something that was so incredible to not even think about turning it down because of who he is and what he is going to bring to St. John’s.
“I’m really excited to come back to a place I love and be here for a really long time.”
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