It was the spring of 1991, and St. John’s had just lost to eventual champion Duke in a regional final of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Lou Carnesecca invited the various newspaper writers who covered the team to an end-of-season dinner at Dante Restaurant, his longtime haunt near campus.

Why not? It seemed like a nice gesture. So this then-30-year-old reporter told his editor that he would be away for a while, making his way from the Newsday bureau in Queens.

Six hours later. . .

I left the restaurant with a better sense of what a casual Carnesecca lunch is all about and with a quintessential New York experience.

Instead of the small table of sportswriters I had imagined, there were long tables filling the restaurant with several dozen of Looie’s closest friends.

Menus? Um, no. Just rounds of chef’s choice Italian food and even more rounds of bottles of red wine.

Scenes from an Italian restaurant on Union Turnpike, hosted by Lou Carnesecca, complete with heartburn and hangovers.

Why bring this up now? Because it is one of many ways to illustrate the life and times of Carnesecca, who died on Saturday at the age of 99.

To call it old school would be an understatement.

The guy was born in 1925, two years before television. His father, Alfredo, ran a grocery store in East Harlem.

Carnesecca lived in and around New York City his entire life, except during his service in World War II, and was reluctant to thrive.

He was a character who enjoyed being a character who was mostly authentic, partly cheesy, and all memorable.

And as much as he himself was a New Yorker without a central cast, he knew almost every other famous New Yorker in the sports world of the mid-to-late 20th century. And non-New Yorkers too.

However, basketball was his domain.

In an interview with Newsday in late 2023, two weeks before his 99th birthday, he was able to give firsthand opinions on legendary coaches like Joe Lapchick, John Wooden, Frank McGuire, Adolph Rupp, Nat Holman, Ben Carnevale, Clair Bee and others , yes, Rick Pitino.

Like others whose images were so colorful that they threatened to overshadow their achievements – Yogi Berra comes to mind – it was easy to forget that Carnesecca knew basketball in general, dealing with recruiting on the streets of New York City in particular and was no pushover.

Most famously, he made the transition from the old, loose-knit days of Eastern college basketball to a towering figure in the early Big East.

The highlight came in 1985, when he led St. John’s to the Final Four before falling to mighty Georgetown.

This season’s rivalry between St. John’s and Georgetown was and remains one of the highlights of New York’s long-standing love affair with college basketball.

And it cemented New York’s long love affair with Carnesecca. The feeling of underestimating things was mutual.

Carnesecca never left his hometown. Why should he? He spent his last years in Queens, still sharp and funny.

When St. John’s hired Pitino, an old Big East rival, as coach in 2023, the then 98-year-old appeared at the opening press conference.

“Lou built a legendary program – legendary – and we will return to those days by exemplifying everything he taught,” Pitino said, pointing to Carnesecca.

As he left the event that day, the old man said, “This is a great day, a great day.”

Carnesecca was thrilled by the attention he received in one of his first public appearances since the COVID-19 pandemic.

People were his lifeblood, and he could kibitze and joke with the best of them, from recruits to fans to reporters.

When asked shortly before his 99th birthday what kept him going, he replied: “It has to be the olive oil.”

When he rejected his father’s desire to become a doctor, he remembered and said, “I thank God for his infinite wisdom. He knew I would have caused more deaths than the bubonic plague.”

Journalists usually have to approach modern coaching stars through protective PR people.

How did one get an audience with Carnesecca? By showing up unannounced at his office and asking his secretary, “Is Coach there?” (He was the only coach I called “coach” in 40 years of sportswriting.)

Privately, Carnesecca had a tough side that he could and would direct at those who got in his way.

But his public demeanor never changed, and his infamous gravelly voice and accent said it all. He was a New Yorker, troo and troo.

The next round is up to me, Coach. No menu required.