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
I've never beaten a team that played that well. This is the gutsiest, most phenomenally tough group that I've ever been around.
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.
Nobody we've played this season, ... has come with this much size, this much talent and this much experience. North Carolina and Georgia Tech probably have the most overall talent. Now that they're healthy, they're probably believing they can do it.
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.
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.
Hicks is inch-for-inch, pound-for-pound the toughest player in basketball. We played really good defense against a good ball club.
We just wanted to lock down defensively. We made great defensive plays down the stretch. Inexperienced teams find a way to lose, tonight we found a way to win.
I've tried to talk to him about it. He's not playing with Francisco, Larry (O'Bannon) and Ellis. And they know every little move that each other makes. He's playing with all new people. They don't know each other. He's got to let the game come to him and trust his teammates. And the more he goes inside to (center) David (Padgett) the more open shots he's going to get.
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.
These are special fans. That was a great 14,000 fans - they were terrific. The NIT is a chance for some of our fans who don't have season tickets to help our team, which they did tremendously. I think our guys responded like there was a lot at stake, because there is a lot at stake.
Billy coached as perfect a game as I've ever seen in a national championship game. It reminded me of 1987 when he carried an average Providence team to the final weekend.
What I've found in my life with our children is that often you can give them advice and tell them to eat the right things, stay in shape and wear sunscreen, and they don't really want to listen. But then they hear it from someone else, and they do listen.
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.
I'd tell any coach not to move for money... Stay at your job if you're really happy.