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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > March > 28 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USPitino’s evolution makes Louisville dangerous
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Charlotte The former egomaniac Rick Pitino appears before us as a changed man, older and wiser but still as charismatic as all get-out. He changed college basketball two decades ago with his pressing and his 3-point shooting, and for the next few years he figured he’d outcoach everybody. Turns out nobody outcoaches everybody for very long.
“I’ve come to realize why you win and why you lose,” Pitino said Friday, the day before his latest team will face North Carolina in the East Regional final, “and it has nothing to do with me or with Roy [Williams, Carolina’s coach] — players win or lose. It’s less and less about what you know and more about what your guys do.”
We pause to reflect: In 1995 a Pitino-coached team played North Carolina in another regional final, and the day before that game Pitino compared his program to Dean Smith’s and said, “Both have great coaching.” Carolina beat favored Kentucky rather easily, and to his credit the self-described “great coach” used the bitter defeat as a life lesson.
“That loss was the pilot that helped us win a national championship [in 1996],” Pitino said. “We were disappointed in our shot selection.”
From that day forward, every Pitino team has sought to blend 3-point shooting with inside scoring, and we saw the results yet again as Louisville, his latest team, trashed Tennessee 79-60 in Thursday’s semifinal. The Vols were what a Pitino team used to be; the Cardinals are what a Pitino team is.
And what is Pitino himself? One of four coaches to take four programs (Boston U., Providence, Kentucky and Louisville) to the Big Dance. The only coach ever to guide three schools to the Final Four. He’s no longer the prodigy who sparked the epic Providence run of 1987 — Billy Donovan, that team’s star, has grown up to win more NCAA titles than his mentor — but he’s still among the two or three best in the business.
Said Louisville forward Juan Palacios: “Coach P, he knows what he’s doing. He’s been coaching 32 or 33 years — whenever you ask him how long, he always gives you a different answer.”
Said Pitino, speaking of a famous 150-95 loss he suffered against Williams and Kansas in 1989: “I have no feelings [about that game]. Like Tello [Palacios] said, I try to forget how long I’ve been coaching. I remember the good things and forget the bad ones. I don’t ever remember coaching in Boston.”
Here he laughed. If we’re looking for the reason Pitino at 55 isn’t half as full of himself as the 35- or 45-year-old model, we need only to recall those 3 1/2 seasons with the Celtics. Hailed as the savior of the NBA’s proudest franchise, he resigned midway through Season 4 having suffered the first real failure of his professional life.
Pitino: “I learned more from losing those four years with the Boston Celtics than I’ve learned at any time with the exception of my two years with Hubie Brown [as a Knicks assistant in the mid-’80s]. I learned patience.”
After leaving Boston, Pitino surfaced at Louisville, where he discovered something about human nature. The Kentucky fans who’d lionized him in the ’90s were now calling him Traitor Rick. But it must be noted that, for the Cards’ game against Tennessee, the man known as Mr. Wildcat — Bill Keightley, Kentucky’s equipment manager since 1962 and an avowed Cardinal hater — was seated in the first row of the Louisville section.
“I’ve learned a little about the game of life,” Pitino said. “[Keightley’s] never going to like Louisville — that’s not in his makeup. But he understands friendship and loyalty, and we’re friends for life. A lot of guys I thought were my friends, they weren’t my friends.”
Once the driven young ruler of college basketball, Rick Pitino is now the aging (but not yet graying) eminence. This isn’t the best team he has ever had, but because it’s his team it has a chance against anybody. Even Carolina.
Comments
By Nate
March 29, 2008 1:30 AM | Link to this
Thanks, Mark. That’s a really good read (of course I’m a diehard Cards’ fan). Pitino does indeed give UofL a chance against any team.
By Lee Barton
March 29, 2008 10:37 AM | Link to this
There are UK fans that will never forgive him, there are some Celtic fans that will never forgive him for wasting 4 years of their hard earned season ticket money. His current U of L “friends” will dump him if he loses, is caught cheating or becomes the next coach at Indiana. That is a real life lesson he should have been smart enough to know already. Lee Barton, Huntsville Al
By billy
March 29, 2008 5:44 PM | Link to this
Bradley, you are a genius of a writer. I love your articles and it’s ones like this that prove your ability. My favorites are when you write about the DAWGS!. But anytime I see your name as the author, I figure it’s something worth reading.
By Mark Bradley
March 29, 2008 6:39 PM | Link to this
Thanks, Billy. I’m greatly appreciative.
By JackP
March 29, 2008 9:00 PM | Link to this
Pitino is an opportunist and an egomaniac. His days at Louisville are about over as he moves on to the next opportunity. He hears the footsteps catching up to him.
By BB
March 29, 2008 11:32 PM | Link to this
Mark,
I apologize for hijacking your article, but there are more important issues in the world. I have copied this from a post to Furman’s thread because I believe it deserves the coverage.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/03/28/marines_0329.html
Welcome home, devil dogs. I do not have ANY idea why the ajc would not allow us to publish comments welcoming you back.
Well done, Marines. I do not agree with you having been there, but I am very happy that you did your job and that you ALL came home safely.
Well done.
You did your job with honor and dignity. You have done the job ordered and expected of you to the best of your ability. I would like to offer my personal thanks to you for carrying out your mission, I appreciate the sacrifices that you and your family have made on my behalf. I offer my personal prayers of thanks for your safe return.
To paraphrase from my time in the Corps, “I have served my time in hell”. You can now wear this badge proudly. You have been there.
Thank you.
By Peerless Mama
April 1, 2008 12:04 PM | Link to this
Bill Keightley died today. Thanks for mentioning him in your column.
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