Suffolk basketball media day: Amityville's Jack Agostino enters his final season as head coach
Members of the Amityville varsity basketball team from left: head coach Jack Agostino, Amir Dickerson, Westley Flythe, and assistant coach Daniel Berrios during the Suffolk boys and girls basketball media day at Sachem North High School in Lake Ronkonkoma on Saturday. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
If you ask Amityville coach Jack Agostino what he hopes his boys basketball team will accomplish as the 2025-26 winter season begins, his answer doesn’t revolve around the court.
“I want them to go to college,” Agostino said at Suffolk’s inaugural media day. “That’s the No. 1 thing . . . You don’t remember the winning like you remember the losses. But you remember the relationships.”
It’s that care for his players that has helped Agostino become one of the most successful coaches in Long Island varsity basketball. But that’s not the only thing he hopes to look back on.
“We’d like to put up banners, that’s for sure,” he said with a smile.
This winter will be Agostino’s final one as a head coach. He will have coached 33 years of varsity basketball, including 31 with Amityville. He has earned nine Long Island championships and four state public school titles.
Agostino, 63, plans to take on a consultant/assistant coach role in the 2026-27 season, helping current assistant coach A.J. Price, one of his former star players, who is expected to take over as head coach.
“It’s really a young man’s game,” Agostino said. “I think you need to really commit 100% of your time to the program. I did for 33 years. Now it may be 90% of my time, and I feel like when you can’t give 100%, then it’s time.”
Senior stars Amir Dickerson and Westley Flythe, as well as junior Allan Dodson-Isabell, highlight a talented starting five that holds high expectations after last season’s triumph. Senior Jordon Hines and junior Camron Alford will play key roles for Amityville.
“It’s our senior season, it’s his last year coaching,” Flythe said. “He’s been coaching for a very long time, so I just want to make sure we end on a good note and go far.”
“It’s chip or bust,” Dickerson added.
Smithtown West coach Mike Agostino, Jack’s younger brother, helped put Suffolk basketball’s media day together, having been inspired by football’s fall iteration.
“It’s power in numbers,” Mike Agostino said. “The more teams and coaches that take ownership in promoting our sport, the better the sport will be.”
Season expectations
Michael Cascione, Smithtown West boys basketball: “I’ve just been really mad lately. Thursday we lost [in football], and it just really set me back. I want to win. I really hate losing.”
Vince Corso, Half Hollow Hills West boys basketball: “Dead legs. Besides that, it’s everyone doing everything together. Everyone’s got to work hard.”
Alyssa Lorefice, Smithtown West girls basketball: “All our starters are returning players. We already know the routine . . . We know what we can do to get to counties again.”
Rylee Moran, Islip girls basketball: “Coming off the soccer season where most of us were seniors, we know how it feels the last time to step off a field or a court. We want to make the most of every moment.”
Sarah Power, Northport girls basketball: “Putting on that Northport jersey, you’re representing Northport. You’re representing our legacy and our coach [Richard Castellano]. Northport basketball has been so great for so many years that as soon as we put that jersey on, we know that we have to be professional, serious and dialed in on the game.”
Amari Trent, Bellport boys basketball: “A lot of people are overlooking our team because we’re young or inexperienced. We are just hungry and looking to prove a lot of people wrong.”
Michael Sicoli covers high school sports for Newsday. He graduated from Quinnipiac in 2022 and left with a master’s degree in sports journalism in 2023.
