Rick Pitino
Rick Pitino
Richard Andrew "Rick" Pitino is an American basketball coach. Since 2001, he has been the head coach at the University of Louisville, and coached the Cardinals to the 2013 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. As a college head coach, Pitino has also served at Boston University, Providence College and the University of Kentucky, leading that program to the NCAA championship in 1996. In addition to his college coaching career, Pitino also served two stints in the NBA, coaching the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth18 September 1952
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The whole NIT we're playing great defense, that's what we're trying to stress. We talked about, we can't hang our heads because we had injuries, we can't hang our heads because we're young. If you can head to the NIT Final Four, it means you're playing good basketball.
I think I do regret leaving Kentucky because I took over a team with 15 wins banking everything on the Tim Duncan lottery, and once we didn't get Tim Duncan, I realized that leaving Kentucky was not a good move.
We hang in there with some pretty good basketball teams. (But) there is no substitute for experience. Young teams don't win against good teams.
We've got to stop Gray inside. Padgett really played well against him and Brian and Terrance aren't the offensive threat David is, so we're going to have to get a good game out of Palacios and our two centers just to contain Gray.
With seven new players, you're never going to have an experienced lineup. This is who we are. ... Our guys did a good job. The key is six weeks from now, how good can we become?
It worked OK. It was to our favor. The only problem is our point guard (Andre McGee) is breaking down physically. He's doing a good job, but he's wearing out.
I try not to get too low. I fight adversity as hard as I can fight it, not to get too low. When good things happen, I don't really embrace it. I just say it's a lucky day.
Failure is good. It's fertilizer. Everything I've learned about coaching, I've learned from making mistakes.
The one thing I've always said: Let your family and close friends be the judge of who you are as a person. Don't worry about being judged by others who don't know you, because your family and close friends know what you're all about, good and bad.
They do such a good job of penetrating. We got beat constantly off the dribble. It was a matter of a team much more athletic than us. Our style is a very athletic style being played by not very athletic people.
They're going to have to get a coach as good as Bob Huggins, and that's not easy to find. But if they can attract someone of the caliber of Bob Huggins, they can certainly continue.
This group is inexperienced, but once they start practicing together more, I think the sky is the limit to how good they can become. We've won all our games not because of who we played but because we've played them all at home. It will be interesting to see how they handle going into this environment.
I think the week off is a good thing now, especially for David. Resting the knee is important.
Hicks is inch-for-inch, pound-for-pound the toughest player in basketball. We played really good defense against a good ball club.