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Rick Pitino May Be The Most Fiendishly Clever Mastermind The World Has Ever Known
By Jay Busbee | May 12, 2007
Celtics basketball. Kentucky basketball. Two proud and storied programs, but two programs whose best days are long behind them. Two programs lying in ruins, the psyches of their fanbases shattered, their hopes bordering on delusional: (”Billy Gillispie/Greg Oden/Kevin Durant will save us! You’ll see! You’ll all see! Hahahahahahaha…oh, God…”)
Two progams with something else in common…they were both crushed beneath the gleaming, expensive shoeheel of one Rick Pitino.
Pitino is the basketball equivalent of Terrell Owens or Ted McGinley (or, for the left-leaning among you, George W. Bush) — destroying lives and careers all around him, then whistling merrily off to another cush gig. Back in 1997, Pitino bolted Kentucky for Boston, banking that the Celtics would win the lottery and its associated grand prize, Tim Duncan. And, as Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Rick Bozich notes, that move put Kentucky into a tailspin from which it has never recovered. (Yes, the Wildcats won a national championship in 1998, but Pitino’s players had an awful lot to do with that.)
Anybody who’s watched the NBA since then knows the rest — the Celtics lost the lottery (not an especially tough thing to do; they were only about 33 percent favorites, and even pocket aces get cracked now and then). And of all the lotteries to lose, this was not the one; outside of Duncan, it was pretty slim pickings. Chauncey Billups and Tracy McGrady were the only other impact players drafted that year, and it took each of them several seasons to make any kind of impact.
So, yeah, Boston — wrecked. Kentucky – wrecked. And where’s Pitino now? In a stunning sports betrayal that we don’t think got nearly the amount of press it should have*, Pitino returned to college coaching in, of all places, Louisville, an hour’s drive from Rupp Arena. Would Coach K take over the Tar Heels? Would Bobby Bowden helm the Gators? Would Paulie Walnuts go to work for Phil Leotardo? (Hang on…let’s not answer that one just yet.)
Pitino may be a soulless mercenary, but you can’t argue with results — he’s made the Cardinals back into a top-10 program, and he’s energized the fanbase enough to break ground on a whole new arena. Meanwhile, Kentucky and Boston rewind grainy old videotapes, reminiscing like Civil War widows in the day’s fading light. (We’ve been reading too much Faulkner lately.)
Upshot of all this is simple. Right about now, if we’re Louisville, we’re currying favor with Mr. Pitino in whatever way possible, lest he decide to smite us and jump to take over, oh, Prime Minister of Britain or something.
Heads up, Spurrier. Your title’s in jeopardy.
*-Kentucky/Louisville-area readers, give us the inside scoop. What do people really think of Pitino’s turncoat move? Do they care, or has he just dosed the entire state with bright red Kool-Aid?
Topics: SEC, Basketball, Kentucky |
May 13th, 2007 at 9:43 am
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May 13th, 2007 at 9:53 am
tubby was UKs ruin, but billy clyde is a quick fix and nobody works harder in the nation to get players than Billy Clyde
May 13th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Great writing on Pitino. As a fan I appreciate what he did for Ky b’ball, but he forgets what Ky b’ball did for him. ($40 million,I believe) He is truly shameless.I pity him as he is to stupid to know he has no class. I personally would not walk across the the street to pee on his grave. He isn’t worth it. He is so arrogant that he annnounced he wasn’t interested in the KY job after Tubby resigned. Funny thing is he was never asked and not on the short list. And he also likes to call Ky fans idiots. I guess he should know. I do take exception to you referring to Ky being in ruins. I don’t think so. Mr Slick Rick is not bigger than the Univ. of Ky and KENTUCKY is the house than Coach Rupp built, NOT RICK PITINO.He (Pitino) is a good coach for college but quite pathic for the pros. If you can coach it shouldn’t matter if you get Tim Duncan or not. Sounds like a excuse to save face on a miserable coaching job.Coach Gillispie will be much bigger than Rick Pitino.
A short funny story. I had a yard sale and put all the Pitino books he wrote, in the yard sale. They were FREE,I was giving them away. Not one person in a U of L sweatshirt took any of them. Asked if it was a joke and I replied “NO” they are free to anyone who wants them. They all walked away and that told me everything I needed to know.
May 13th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
NBA owners noted this after John Calipari and Pitino were given the reins of the Nets and the Celtics without proper checks and balances (Pitino was made the team prez, nudging Red Auerbach out the door), and no such offers have been made to college coaches since.
Note the rumors around Memphis inquiring with Billy Donovan about their coaching vacancy: he wanted Pitino-like control to even consider it, and rightly, the Grizzlies blanched. College coaches are used to complete control of their program, but that doens’t mean it should be granted by a pro franchise when it hires a coach from the college ranks. This rule applies across sports, even — please see Nick Saban.
May 13th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
–S2N: Good point. I’ll be touching on the Donovan story tomorrow. And yeah, giving all the power to one guy’s like the utterly dependent housewife thinking her husband’s never gonna ditch her for that younger, hotter secretary who looks just like she did back on their wedding day.
–Judy, UKFAN: Thanks for stopping by and giving us the skinny. Y’all don’t be strangers, now.
May 13th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
As a UK fan who lives in Lexington, I do not like Pitino. He was dead to me the day he accepted the UL job. However, you have some serious facts wrong with your story. First off, UL has finished in the top 10 once in the five years Pitino has been there, their 2005 Final Four year. That is also the only year they made it past opening weekend. And two of those five years they did not make the NCAA tournament. That is far from a top 10 program. Also, during this great downward spiral at UK, they have beaten UL/Pitino 3 years in a row.
UK is down right now, but is in no way, shape, or form comparable to the disaster that is the Boston Celtics. UK has not made a Final Four since 1998, but they have made the tournament every year and never lost in the first round. They have enjoyed tremendous regular seasons, including the only undefeated season in SEC 16 game history, but the post season success has not been at the level that is expected at UK. This was mainly due to the former coach, Tubby Smith, who let the recruiting slide.
UK’s down seasons are better than UL’s seasons with Pitino. I look forward to Billy G. taking UK back to where it belongs.
May 13th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Thanks for the insight, Kevin. Y’all have made a Wildcats fan out of me in just 24 hours.
May 13th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Being a Louisville fan I have say I was happy when Pitino came to UofL because the program really had been down. Marcus Mayben was the first to play for Denny Crum all four of his years at UofL and not play in the NCAA tournament. Since he was a proven college winner, i could stomach the fact that he coached in Lexington. I just wanted to see Louisville win again.
As far as Pitino as a person, he does come across as being very arrogant. Can’t say i love him or anything. Obviously, he’s a very good coach, but his time in Louisville hasn’t been as successful as I imagined it would be when he came to Louisville. But if this core group of players stay together, great things might be on the horizon.
May 13th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I know you’re trying to prove a point, but you’ve really got your facts wrong here. L’ville is not a top 10 program. Before an end of the season winnning streak they were slated for the NIT. Pitino has had some success at L’ville, and certainly has improved the program, but his success has been inconsitent so far.
UK is not wrecked, not even close. Until the past 2 yrs UK still owned the SEC. There has never been a risk of UK not making the tournament. And, Pitino, while at L’ville, has a losing record against UK. UK is still a premier program, one that has just had a few less than stellar years recently. Not only is UK not “wrecked”, you can’t even make a reasoned claim that L’ville is the better program right now, at least not until they begin beating UK.
May 13th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Tell you what, if we’re judging by the volume and intensity of fans in response to this post, UK whips L’ville’s ass.
Thanks for the comments, Brian. Good stuff. Please keep stopping by.
May 13th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
How is Kentucky “wrecked”? Wrecked is nearly being given the death penalty for cheating. Which btw, is the level of “ruin” Pitino saved UK from, and with Tubby Smith on autopilot, they won a national title and went to four other regional finals. That’s hardly what I’d call a disaster. Unless you think it’s still 1948 and one team should be able to dominate college basketball for an entire decade.
May 14th, 2007 at 10:32 am
[…] Rick Pitino may be the most fiendishly clever mastermind the world has ever known (Sports Gone South) […]
May 14th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
In his 6 seasons at Louisville, Pitino has been to exactly one Sweet 16, while he went 5 out of 6 at UK.
Also, since arriving at Louisville, he’s 2-4 against Kentucky.
So if Kentucky is in “ruins,” what does that day about Louisville?
Granted, Tubby Smith did a terrible job at UK the last few years, but it was “terrible” only by UK standards.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
If Pitino was up in flames I wouldn’t pee on his head. As a UK fan, I understand what he did for our program and will never forget it. The problem with him, and certainly Tubby, was the belief that they were bigger than the program. As arrogant as Pitino was and is, Tubby is the same way if you examine the situation as closely as UK fans have. His refusal to deal with AAU programs provide an example. This is why the excitement is back in Lexington, we have a coach that is actually humble. When I saw him at the pep rally that first day, Gillispie was nearly in tears. Back to Pitino, he could have gone to several big name programs (i.e. UNLV) but chose UL. We made Pitino (he was an unknown when we signed him), and he repays us by coaching our biggest rival. Show some friggin’ loyalty. There is nothing as sweet as beating the Cardinals.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
You would have thought with the tremendous success and even winning a national championship at UK that the mutual shared feelings between Pitino and the BBN that it would have been impossible for Pitino to have seriously considered the Louisville job knowing that it would have ruined his greatest coaching achievement in the hearts of those he should have felt the most appreciative of. I will never forgive him, nor will I ever consider it.
May 15th, 2007 at 12:19 am
This is a dangerous topic for a Kentucky fan, given what has transpired for the Big Blue Nation today (3 “almost last resorts” saying “no” in the matter of a few hours); in other words, I would love to take any personal (yes, it is personal) frustration/negative vibes from this recent barrage of rejections and launch into a topic that I agree never got its due. Worse yet, it comes up only when the “national media” spins it as another example of how irrational UK fans are.
That’s the worst part of the Pitino saga. The victims get treated as the criminals here. Once I decided that I was not going to care (my therapist said, “let it go”), I couldn’t let it go while Cats Fans over and over were characterized as being delusional unless we acted like it was normal for one of our most beloved ex-coaches to take the same job at your biggest rival 60 miles down the interstate.
If my wife left me for Prince Edward and, when that didn’t work out, she moves in with the guy in the trailor next door (who I don’t like very much), am I expected to look up at her jersey in the rafters and not plot about how I could sneak into Rupp Arena and make sure my children never have to look at that again? (Sorry to lose control of my metaphor, but I feel certain even the most rational Kentucky fans have had similar thoughts.)
May 15th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I am so sick of you idiots bashing pitino mercilessly without using any damn common sense. It was kentucky’s decision to hire tubby smith as pitino’s replacement, how is it rick’s fault that tubby isn’t as great of a recruiter as pitino is & was. Kentucky fans need to realize that your standards for basketball excellence just aren’t realistic in today’s age of college basketball. I agree that pitino’s reign in boston was a disaster but don’t be naive, you nitwits, danny ainge has done more damage to the celtics now because pitino has been gone for 6 years & ainge is a fool. I have never met pitino, he may be arrogant for all I know but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the man is a future hall of fame coach whose louisville team is a final four contender & can win a national championship in san antonio next april as long as the team is healthy not to mention his college record speaks for itself. People who say that pitino hasn’t done that great of a job in louisville need to realize that his team for the last few years has been plagued with injuries not to mention it doesn’t help when amir johnson, sebastian telfair, & donta smith never play for pitino. The important thing to remember is that when rick pitino is coaching a healthy basketball team, the sky is the limit as to how far they can go in the NCAA tournament.
May 15th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
“Kentucky fans need to realize that your standards for basketball excellence just aren’t realistic in today’s age of college basketball.”
You know what’s funny? When UK fans have these expectations, they’re unrealistic. When Duke and UNC have similar expectations, it’s OK. And they seem to be in the running almost every year. Think before you talk.
May 15th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
the unrealistic expectations that kentucky fans have should also be understood by north carolina, duke, ucla, kansas, & other powerhouse basketball schools. I should have written that earlier, my bad greg. In today’s college game with kids leaving early not to mention a reduction in scholarships, it’s going to be difficult to be dominant year in & year out. Look at michigan state as an example, they have made the tournament almost every year since izzo has been there but they haven’t won a big 10 title (conference or tournament) in years. Carolina hasn’t been to the final four since winning the national title in 05 & duke hasn’t been back since 04. Even UCLA isn’t probably going to go on a 5 year straight run of final fours. Look at duke, they will be better next year, but I don’t see k’s kids raising any banners or going to a final four.