Pitt-Johnstown men's basketball coach Bob Rukavina retires after 37 seasons, 577 wins
· Yahoo Sports
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – After 37 seasons, 577 wins and five NCAA Division II men’s basketball tournament appearances, Pitt-Johnstown coach Bob Rukavina announced his retirement Tuesday.
“I think it was just time,” said Rukavina, 69. “A lot of years.”
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In 1989, Rukavina took over a program that struggled for a decade and had produced only four winning seasons since 1969. He led the Mountain Cats to their first winning record in 14 years during the 1991-92 season.
“When we had our first winning season, it was the first group of guys we had that graduated and played four years of basketball,” Rukavina said. “The program didn’t have anybody graduate in six years. When I got the job, I remember (former wrestling coach) Pat Pecora saying, ‘Try to get good kids and be competitive. Don’t worry about winning that much. Just keep them in school.’
“I thought that’s good but that’s not all it’s going to be,” Rukavina said. “We’ve got to win. It took a few years, but we did it the right way all the way through.
“That’s one thing I could be proud of. Since I’ve been there, we graduated everybody but two guys that played in their senior year.”
‘Father figure’
Rukavina’s teams posted a .575 winning percentage (577-427) and produced 20 or more wins in 10 different seasons – including four consecutive 20-win seasons from 2005-06 through 2008-09 and three in a row from 2019-20 to 2022-23.
His 1997-98 Mountain Cats went 24-5 – a program single-season win record.
In addition to success on the court, Rukavina’s student-athletes compiled a 90% graduation rate.
“Coach ‘Ruk’ drastically impacted my life as a volleyball student-athlete during my time at Pitt-Johnstown,” said Athletic Director Abby Gearhart. “He wasn’t just a basketball coach. He was a father figure to so many. You knew you could count on him to give you good advice and be your biggest fan.”
‘Tremendous basketball IQ’
Gearhart said a search soon will begin for Rukavina’s replacement. The veteran coach believes the Mountain Cats shouldn’t have to look very far.
His 11-year assistant coach Patrick Grubbs played a prominent role on Rukavina’s staff.
Grubbs also scored 1,759 points and collected a program-best 996 rebounds during his career as a Mountain Cats player.
“I’ve been around a lot of basketball people, and Pat has a tremendous basketball IQ,” Rukavina said of Grubbs. “The last three or four years I’ve given him full reign of game planning.
“He watches more film than anybody in the league. He knows everybody’s sets. He calls them out in the game and tells our guys where to go and what to do.”
As both a former player and assistant coach, Grubbs had a unique perspective on Rukavina’s impact at Pitt-Johnstown.
“I can’t thank Coach Rukavina enough for all that he’s done for me,” Grubbs said. “From recruiting a chubby kid with no other interest, to bringing me back as his assistant, I have so much gratitude and appreciation for him.
“Any success that I had as a player was because of him. He always had a knack for putting his players in positions to succeed.”
‘Very good at it’
Rukavina spent 47 years coaching basketball, starting as a 22-year-old at his alma mater Riverview High School in Pittsburgh and then holding coaching roles at both Community College of Allegeny County’s North and South campuses before landing at Pitt-Johnstown.
Retired Pitt-Johnstown Athletic Director Ed Sherlock hired Rukavina – first as an assistant coach to Chris Kristich, and then as the head coach – upon the recommendation of iconic Community College of Allegheny County coach Bill Shay.
“I respected Bill because he knew what we were going through and what we needed to get,” Sherlock said. “We gave Bob a chance. Initially, he wasn’t recruiting on a high enough level to be competitive, but over the years he learned how to do it. Turned out he was very good at it.”
Rukavina recalled a couple early milestones that signified an about-face for the men’s program, which at the time was overshadowed by the national success of the Pitt-Johnstown women’s basketball and wrestling programs.
“My second year we played Slippery Rock. They were ranked second in the country and beat us by 42 points at their place,” Rukavina recalled. “They had Myron Brown, who played for the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA a couple years.
“We played them two weeks later at our place and we decided to run the shot clock,” Rukavina said. “We held the ball, ran the clock down and ended up beating them. That was the first big win after I got the job because nobody had beaten them in the regular season for like two years.”
A milestone victory over a NCAA Division I program was another important step.
“The next year we had the first winning season, and we clinched our winning season at Division I Youngstown State,” Rukavina said.
‘Left out’
The Mountain Cats advanced to the NCAA Division II Regional Tournament five times – 1997, 1998, 2008, 2009 and 2023.
Those appearances are even more impressive considering Pitt-Johnstown played as an independent for decades until joining the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, and later the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference – the program’s current home.
“It was so difficult being independent because there were three conferences and only six teams went to the tournament,” Rukavina said. “So, if there were upsets in a conference tournament, we were left out (of the regional). We had to really fight to get in.”
Perhaps the biggest snub came in 1999, when the Mountain Cats were poised to make a third straight tournament appearance.
“We were were ranked second or third in the country and had a 23-4 record,” Rukavina said of his 1998-99 squad. “There were two upsets in the conference tournaments, and we didn’t get a bid. That was devastating to us.”
‘Great group of guys’
On January 18, 2020, Rukavina notched his 500th career coaching win. That team started a three-year string of 20-win seasons.
The Mountain Cats had three straight losing records in Rukavina’s final three seasons.
“We had a great group of guys this year. We didn’t win a lot of games but it was a tremendous group of guys,” Rukavina said of a 12-16 record during his final season. “I told them it has nothing to do with our wins and losses.
“It was time to move on. I have a kid on my team from my hometown. I went to 12 years of school with his grandmother – not his mother. I knew his mom when she was 3 years old. I felt it was time.”