Richard Pitino (Getty Images)

If Minnesota fans are hoping their new coach turns out to be a young version of his father, they're probably only half right.

Those close to Richard Pitino say the 30-year-old rising star in the coaching industry is a blend of his dad and his dad's most well-known protege.

Richard Pitino did indeed inherit Rick Pitino's facial features, quick wit and Long Island accent, but his laid-back nature and ability to relate well with players is more reminiscent of Florida coach Billy Donovan. And Richard's strong work ethic and attention to detail is consistent with both his mentors.

[Also: Kevin Ware graciously adjusts to the spotlight after horrific injury]

"Richard is not like me at all when I was his age. He's exactly like Billy," Rick Pitino said in March of last year. "His mannerisms are a lot like Billy. He loves offense like Billy loves offense. He's a great scout, a great preparer of game plans, like Billy was. He's very humble, like Billy was. He laughs like Billy. You know, like Billy told my wife, 'I really miss having fun with Richard.' He likes to have a lot of fun. He's very close with the players, like Billy was."

Minnesota's decision to hire Richard Pitino is a good gamble for the Gophers considering their limited options.

Shaka Smart, Mick Cronin and Flip Saunders reportedly were among those who already had taken themselves out of consideration and other established head coaches weren't likely to jump at a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten job with modest pedigree and facilities. As a result, why not take a chance on an unproven but promising young coach whose lone season as a head coach was a clear success?

Andy Enfield (Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES — At the start of a press conference introducing his new basketball coach Wednesday afternoon, USC athletic director Pat Haden made a startlingly honest admission.

"USC basketball should be relevant," Haden said. "But let's be honest, it has not been relevant for a while."

For the first time in a long time, there's reason to believe USC basketball has the elements in place to achieve that goal in the near future.

Seven years ago, USC traded the decaying Los Angeles Sports Arena for the state-of-the-art Galen Center. Three years ago, the Trojans replaced an athletic director who always seemed disinterested in basketball with one in Haden who insists he's committed to providing the resources necessary to win. And this week, Haden landed a coach who's part tactician and part showman, perhaps the right blend to capitalize on the resources available to him, attract top prospects from fertile Los Angeles and finally make USC basketball a hot ticket.

Andy Enfield, whose Florida Gulf Coast team became the first No. 15 seed ever to reach the Sweet 16 last week, is Haden's missing piece of the puzzle. The 43-year-old coach wasn't on USC's radar at the start of the search, but he impressed Haden with his appealing style of play, success as a program builder and knack for developing talent.

"There's no reason in my mind we can't be successful in basketball, but we just need a leader," Haden said. "When I looked at Andy, I wasn't just evaluating the past two or three weeks. I really looked at a life of success in basketball. Every stop along the way, every person I talked to said he has a style of play that's difficult to defend, his teams play good defense and he has a track record of player development."

Ron Baker (Getty Images)

Somehow, getting his driver's license when he turned 16 is now merely the second best birthday present Wichita State guard Ron Baker has received.

That pales in comparison to the dream 20th birthday party Baker experienced Saturday in Los Angeles.

He started in an Elite Eight game as a redshirt freshman for Wichita State. He climbed a ladder and cut down a strand of net after the Shockers upset heavily favored Ohio State to advance to the Final Four. And hundreds of fans who made the trip from Wichita serenaded him during the postgame revelry while the school's pep band played "Happy Birthday" in his honor.

"By far the best birthday a 20-year-old can imagine," Baker said. "It doesn't get better than this."

If Wichita State's roster of castoffs and overlooked recruits is especially appreciative of its improbable Final Four run, then it's safe to say Baker may be the most thankful of all the Shockers to be playing in Atlanta. Very few Division I coaches saw him play in high school since he grew up in a town of 4,000 in rural Kansas, so Baker actually paid his own way to attend Wichita State last year before earning a scholarship this season.

Since returning from a stress fracture in his left foot just in time for the Missouri Valley tournament last month, Baker's relentless effort and accurate perimeter shooting has been instrumental in Wichita State's success. The 6-foot-3 redshirt freshman torched top-seeded Gonzaga for 16 points and four 3-pointers in the round of 32, lit up La Salle for 13 points five nights later and sank all nine of his free throws in the Final Four-clinching win over the Buckeyes on Saturday.

"Him being back means a lot to us," Cleanthony Early said. "He probably does surprise our opponents because they probably think he's just a shooter, but he's going to dive on the floor, he's going to lock you up and he's going to play with heart. I don't know if they're surprised, but they've got game film. If they're not doing their studies on him, that's on the other coaching staff."

When Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti initially viewed troubling video of coach Mike Rice physically and verbally abusing players during practice in November, he determined the penalty should be a $50,000 fine and a three-game suspension.

Only now that video of Rice's behavior has been made public is Pernetti finally willing to do what he should have done months ago.

One day after ESPN's Outside the Lines aired clips of Rice shoving players, chucking balls at them and berating them with curse words and homophobic slurs, Rutgers announced Wednesday morning it has fired the third-year coach. Pernetti acknowledged he had made a mistake opting to issue a stern warning to Rice in the first place rather than banishing him on the spot.

"I am responsible for the decision to attempt a rehabilitation of Coach Rice," Pernetti said in a statement. "Dismissal and corrective action were debated in December and I thought it was in the best interest of everyone to rehabilitate, but I was wrong. Moving forward, I will work to regain the trust of the Rutgers community."'

The decision to fire Rice became almost inevitable by Tuesday evening as video of Rice's behavior became national news. Everyone from LeBron James to Jared Sullinger to New Jersey governor Chris Christie weighed in on the deplorable behavior of Rice and how they would have responded if they were in the shoes of the Rutgers players.

What's especially hard to believe is that Pernetti would risk his own job to back a coach who hasn't exactly been ultra-successful turning the Rutgers program around.

UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero (Getty Images)LOS ANGELES — UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero was having dinner with newly hired coach Steve Alford and his wife on Monday night when he noticed a disturbing headline pop up on a TV overlooking their table.

The story in question was a CBSSports.com report that Pac-12 coordinator of officiating Ed Rush told a group of referees he'd reward them with $5,000 or a trip to Cancun if they assessed a technical foul to Arizona coach Sean Miller or ejected him. Guerero didn't get to read the full story Tuesday because he was busy showing Alford around campus, but what he did see bothered him.

"I'm very concerned about that whole deal," Guerrero said. "The spotlight is always on officiating. There's always concern about the integrity of the game as it relates to that, and certainly this really puts a black eye on the conference and the conference officiating. Whether it was in jest or it was not in jest, there was a judgment issue that goes into play there. And it was very surprising to me when I heard about it."

An investigation by the Pac-12 into Rush's comments concluded they were made in "jest," Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said. Scott acknowledged joking about favoring one team over another was "completely inappropriate," but he told ESPN radio that Rush's job is not in jeopardy.

“What we found was that Ed Rush was being very hard on the officials because he didn’t think they were doing the job of containing the coaches; the coaches’ decorum was getting out of control,” Scott told ESPN radio. "[He was] not solely focused on Coach Miller but on several coaches. That started a banter and discussion about ‘What do I have to do to get you guys to enforce the rules? … Do I gotta give you a trip or do I gotta give you money?’”

Steve Alford (Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES — Hours after reaching an agreement to become UCLA's new coach Saturday morning, Steve Alford was already hard at work trying to repair his program's reputation among Southern California recruits.

One of Alford's first calls was to Pacific Hills High School coach Ivan Barahona, whose star player, Namon Wright, is a top Class of 2014 combo guard and a player both New Mexico and UCLA had previously offered. Alford called while Barahona was golfing Saturday afternoon and again while Barahona was sitting down to Easter dinner with his family, making a point both times to emphasize Wright was one of his top recruiting priorities.

"My wife got mad at me because I was on the phone so much," Barahona said Tuesday. "Namon always liked Coach Alford, but the thing that kind of forced him to back off before was the idea of coming to New Mexico. Now that Coach Alford is at UCLA, he has a double whammy. He can say, 'I'm Steve Alford and I'm at UCLA. Come on down.'"

Perhaps keeping top Los Angeles prospects will indeed be that easy for Alford, but what's critical for UCLA is that he has more success than his predecessor. In the latter half of his tenure, former UCLA coach Ben Howland lost favor with Southern California's top high school and club coaches, some of whom were turned off by his stubborn demeanor or by their belief that his structured style did not showcase their players to NBA scouts.

Of the 10 players Howland signed since the Class of 2010, only San Diego native Norman Powell hailed from Southern California. Howland had to resort to hiring Atlanta-based AAU coach Korey McCray as an assistant in 2011 to try to create a pipeline from the East to help compensate for the program's in-state recruiting woes.

It's the belief of UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero that Alford is the right coach to repair the fractured relationships between the program and Los Angeles-area high school and club coaches. Guerrero points to Alford's success luring all-Mountain West performers Tony Snell and Kendall Williams from Southern California to New Mexico and to the fact that Alford's first addition to his staff, longtime Lobos assistant Duane Broussard, has recruited Los Angeles well.

Photo by @UKsportstalk1The outpouring of support Louisville's Kevin Ware has received the past two days includes some well wishes from an unlikely source.

Wildcat Wearhouse, a Lexington-based Kentucky apparel store, put a message for Ware on its marquee sign Monday that's visible to people in cars driving past. The sign reads, "Prayers for our friend Ware from BBN."

Ware suffered a gruesome compound fracture of his lower right leg during the first half of Louisville's victory over Duke in the Elite Eight on Sunday evening. The injury was severe enough that teammates and coaches were in tears at the sight of it and the broken bone was protruding from the skin.

The prognosis for an eventual return to the floor for Ware sounds promising at this point. He underwent successful surgery to repair the injury, he's walking around on crutches and he told the Louisville Courier Journal doctors are optimistic he might be able to play again as soon as October.

Credit Wildcat Wearhouse – and many Kentucky fans for that matter – for putting aside the rivalry and supporting an injured Louisville player. Big Blue Nation is no doubt rooting for anyone but Louisville to cut down the nets in Atlanta next Monday, but it's nice they're also pulling for Ware to get healthy as quickly as possible.

Andy Enfield (Getty Images)

The mayor of Dunk City is trading one coast for the other.

Andy Enfield, whose Florida Gulf Coast team became the first No. 15 seed ever to reach the Sweet 16 last week, has agreed to a deal to become USC's next coach. Enfield became the Trojans' top target after they were unable to land Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon and Memphis coach Josh Pastner.

The hire of Enfield provides USC the splashy hire it has sought since athletic director Pat Haden fired former coach Kevin O'Neill in January. Enfield went from anonymity to stardom almost overnight thanks to his supermodel wife, his captivating life story and his team's fearless, high-flying style.

Though Enfield only has two years of experience as a college head coach, his background suggests he'll be able to recruit successfully to USC.

He has NBA ties as an assistant coach and shooting instructor, he thrived at Florida State as Leonard Hamilton's top recruiter and many of Florida Gulf Coast's top players were kids he landed rather than holdovers from the previous regime. Furthermore, his bold, fast-paced style is a contrast to how new UCLA coach Steve Alford's teams traditionally have played, which should help him land some Los Angeles recruits who prefer up tempo basketball.

"Andy has been successful in every area of his life," Haden said in a statement. "He has a consistent and proven record of success for more than 15 years in college and the NBA. He is a respected teacher who develops his players on the court and sees them excel in the classroom, he is a noted shooting coach, he is a relentless recruiter and he has integrity and great character."