Coincidentally, the Pitinos proved it’s about winning after all.
This has been an interesting week for the basketball Pitinos. Father Rick returned to college coaching at Iona after scandalous stays at Kentucky and Louisville that drove him to pro ball in Europe.
By winning the Metro Atlantic Conference tournament, after missing the most games this season to COVID than any other Division I program, Iona turned out to be the fifth college that Pitino took to the NCAAs (leading Providence, Kentucky and Louisville to Final Fours and two national championships).
Pitino also coached the Knicks and Celtics of the NBA to lesser success and wound up exiled in Greece for three seasons before Iona gave him another chance in college ball. The guy can coach, no question about it, an early innovator with the 3-point shot with every team he has led and won 655 major college games for a .704 winning percentage.
Despite the personal trouble he got into and escaped at Kentucky and the NCAA probation his Louisville program received that vacated the national title he won there and eventually cost him his job, Pitino has remained immensely popular with loyal fellow coaches and most fans.
The same week as Iona’s unlikely berth in the Big Dance, Pitino’s son Richard was fired at Minnesota after eight years and a losing overall record, despite being a squeaky-clean representative of the Big Ten school.
His reputation allowed the Gophers to stay with him longer than his 143-121 record dictates at most majors, having won the NIT in his first season and reaching only two NCAA tourneys in his last seven.
Minnesota has never been a basketball power in the Big Ten with one Final Four and three conference championships in the modern era of the sport. The school has had some bigger names coaches in basketball, such as Tubby Smith, Clem Haskins, Bill Fitch and Bill Musselman, but none of them had much success in Minneapolis.
So it was time for the 38-year-old Pitino son to go, as well. But it was ironic that it happened the same week his 68-year-old father climbed back in the headlines with some good news at his latest job.
Photo via Todd Melet.
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