LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Two over-publicized North Carolina schools will play Saturday in Chapel Hill. Resist ESPN’s unrelenting shove to convince you that game is the biggest thing happening in college basketball this week.
It’s not.
This is Pitino Week: for Rick at St. John’s and Richard at New Mexico. ESPN NCAA Tournament bracket expert Joe Lunardi has both Pitinos in his latest 68-team field: New Mexico as a No. 7 seed and St. John’s an 8-seed.
If that happens, Rick will be the first coach to direct six programs into the party: Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona and St. John’s.
“I’m not surprised either one is doing great,” said former University of Louisville point guard Peyton Siva, who played for Rick and was recruited by Richard.
“Coach P is one of the greatest to ever do it. His resume speaks for itself. He’s won anywhere he’s been. Richard is a really smart coach who’s gotten better with more experience.
“Even though Coach P is an expensive suit guy and Richard is a sweat suit guy, they’re both super competitive.”
Pitino Week started Sunday night. Former New Mexico coach Steve Alford brought his 16-4 Nevada team to Albuquerque and Richard Pitino sent the Wolf Pack home with a 34-point defeat. Nobody enjoyed the moment more than Richard’s parents — Rick and Joanne — who flew nearly 2,000 miles from New York City to watch in person. Rick Pitino tweeted that he “loved the Lobos.”
On Monday morning, Pitino’s third New Mexico team (18-3) jumped to No. 19 in the Associated Press Top 25, the program’s highest ranking since the end of the 2014 season.
On Wednesday night, the spotlight will twist back to dad. Rick Pitino will bring his 13-7 St. John’s team to Cincinnati for a 6:30 p.m. game against Xavier University at the Cintas Center.
David Padgett, Larry O’Bannon and other former U of L players and staff members plan to attend.
Later that night (10:30 p.m.), New Mexico will try to hold second place in the Mountain West Conference by defeating Boise State (14-6). Both games will air on FS1.
Saturday will be The Main Event — top-ranked Connecticut visits Madison Square Garden to play St. John’s. That one will air on Fox (WDRB in Louisville).
Keep an eye on the pre-game, in-game and post-game interactions between Pitino and UConn coach Danny Hurley.
Two days before Christmas in Hartford, Conn., UConn, the defending NCAA champs, defeated St. John’s, 69-65.
In the aftermath Pitino said that although the rematch would be played in Madison Square Garden this season, future St. John’s home games against the Huskies would be booked on campus at Carnesecca Arena, which seats 5,602.
That’s less than a third of The Garden, a place Huskies fans will help fill this Saturday and during the Big East Tournament.
Considering the boldness of Pitino’s ambition for St. John’s and how much he enjoys playing in Manhattan, Pitino was asked if his crack about playing the Huskies on campus was sincere or a joke.
“Oh, 100 percent (sincere),” Pitino said. “We’re playing them at Carnesecca. It’s definitely not a joke. I have my reasons.”
Back to you, Coach Hurley.
“Listen, when you’ve been ranked in the top-five or whatever we’ve been the whole year, and you’re the defending national champs and you’ve had all the success we’ve had at UConn, everyone’s gunning for us,” Hurley told Dave Borges of the New Haven Register.
“Everyone’s trying to get what we have. We’ve won four national championships since 2000 here at UConn, they haven’t had much success since then, especially when they went from Fran (Fraschilla) to Mike Jarvis and they had those real good teams with Ron Artest.
“They’re trying to do what they need to do to build their program up. But, anyone not named Duke, Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky — I’m probably going to miss a couple of (teams) here — they’re all going for where we’re at.
“We’ve had unbelievable success here in basketball. There are programs who haven’t been to a Final Four, or haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament in 20 years, so there’s obviously a lot of punching up.”
Anybody else want to join the fun?
Steve Masiello, one of Pitino’s assistants at St. John’s as well as at Louisville, could not resist, putting this on X (formerly Twitter):
“I think Coach Pitino stopped punching up after his 5th Final 4, or was it his 6th ? no wait. I think it was after his 7th!”
No wonder Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports tweeted on Monday that the Huskies-Red Storm rematch is expected to be a sellout as well as the most anticipated regular-season St. John’s game in more than 20 years.
“Again, I’m not the least bit surprised,” Siva said. “Coach P is just a basketball guy who can still teach the game and relate to players the way he always has.
“Richard learned from his Dad, Billy Donovan and others. He’s gotten so much experience in his other jobs and is coming into his own.”
And this week Rick and Richard are coming together for Pitino Week in college basketball.
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