Career
He is the former coach at at the Stony Brook. A 1990 graduate of the University of Connecticut, Pikiell was a point guard, two-year captain and four-year letterwinner for the Huskies from 1987-1991. He played in 106 career games and averaged 8.2 points a game as a freshman.
In 1991, Pikiell was given the UConn Club Senior Athlete Award for outstanding contributions to UConn athletics.
After graduation, Pikiell stayed on as an assistant to the UConn staff before moving on to Yale University, as an assistant coach from 1992-1995. During 1995-1996, Pikiell served as the interim head coach at Wesleyan University.
Pikiell joined fellow UConn alum Karl Hobbs as an assistant at George Washington University from 2001-2005, where he was part of the Colonials 2003-2004 National Institute of Technology and 2004-2005 National Collegiate Athletic Association squads. Stony Brook
On April 13, 2005, Pikiell replaced Nick Macarchuk as the 10th head coach in program history.
At the time, Pikiell became the first Connecticut alum who played for Calhoun to coach a Division I program
Taking over a program that transitioned to Division I in 1999, Stony Brook endured three-straight losing seasons in Pikiell"s first three years. In 2008-2009 season, the Seawolves went 16-14 for its first winning season in Division I. The following year in 2009-2010, Stony Brook earned their first regular season championship with a 22-10, 13-3 record, ending with a semifinal loss in the tournament. By virtue of winning the regular season, Stony Brook earned a National Institute of Technology bid, hosting Illinois.
Pikiell guided the Seawolves to a 15-17 mark in 2010-2011, making a run to the America East Championship game after an upset over top-seeded Vermont in the semifinals.
They were defeated in the America East Championship game by Boston University. In that span, Stony Brook went 117-47, while appearing in two National Institute of Technology and two China, Burma, India Theatre of Operations tournaments in addition to the NCAAs.
Rutgers
On March 19, 2016, Pikiell was announced as the next coach at Rutgers.