Back where he belongs
Day 3: Louisville | Traveling Violations
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Big East was the Big East, a newly formed but immediately big-time collection of Northeast schools with mostly small enrollments but giant coaching personalities.
So here was Rick Pitino, a bit of a budding personality in his own right, at Providence College, just his second league game and already challenged into a big city fight with Georgetown's John Thompson.
"Jacek Duda blocked a shot and John went off yelling at center court, 'You are the dirtiest bunch of MFs I've ever seen,' and all of this stuff," Pitino recalled Friday morning from his practice facility here at the University of Louisville.
"I turned to Gordy Chiesa and asked, 'What is he talking about?' We hadn't done anything. It thought he was yelling at the refs. But (Thompson) was going crazy at center court. I started to laugh and then John got insulted. And then all of a sudden I got upset and charged out to center court too.
"And so there I was, yelling at his navel."
Pitino laughed at it all. "After the game John came up to me and said, 'You know, I staged the whole thing, my team was playing flat.'
"That was the Big East."
And that, at least in name, is the league that Pitino is returning to after all of these years. Louisville is part of the Big East's big expansion plans, which means the kid from Oyster Bay, N.Y., who has found his greatest coaching success out here in his Old Kentucky Home, is back.
The league now has 16 spread-out teams. The media attention is greater. The personalities are not as rich. Everything is more professional now.
What was once the league of Rollie and Louie and Big John isn't as easy to grasp.
"At my first league meeting (as coach of Providence) we all fought over almost everything," Pitino said. "It was a lot smaller then. It was incredibly competitive. We all knew each other very well."
So maybe he'll miss the old times, which isn't the same as not being excited about the new ones. Pitino in the Big East is a natural fit. The problem has always been that after leaving Providence for the New York Knicks, there wasn't a good fit to get him back. Outside of perhaps Syracuse or Connecticut, there is no league school with the resources to hire him. And neither of those places has had an opening in decades.
In a sense, Pitino outgrew the Big East. Now he gets to return with a program that offers a rich contract, 20,000 fans a night, private planes and all the trappings of a true national contender.
It is perfect. He still relentlessly recruits metro New York – all three of his latest recruits hail from the area, as did former stars Francisco Garcia (U of L) and Jamal Mashburn (UK). He counts Manhattan's Bravo Gianni's and Camponella's as two of his favorite restaurants. He likes hitting Saratoga Springs for the horse racing each summer.
He owns an apartment on 65th and Madison, which is dangerous considering his wife Joan isn't afraid to shop – "Our building is connected to Valentino Store," he smiled. "If my wife turns left I get divorced. If she turns right, I stay married."
It's not that Pitino hasn't loved and ruled his last two leagues – Conference USA and the SEC (when with Kentucky). But there was always something funny about him pacing a Hattiesburg or Fayetteville sideline in a $3,000 Brioni suit.
This is a guy who should be in a league whose spiritual home is New York. He concedes he can hardly wait to get back to the Big East Tournament, which is the best, he says, for three reasons.
"It is held in the most famous arena in the world (Madison Square Garden), in front of the largest media contingent in the world, in the greatest city in the world."
He looks forward to bringing his Louisville fans to the big stage, the four or five thousand of them who will scramble for tickets making the week for Manhattan ticket brokers. "Oh, those guys are going to like Lousiville," Pitino laughed.
The only downside? Pitino wishes he wasn't re-entering the league with eight players who are either freshman or sophomores.
"They know what to do but not what not to do," he said. "We can possibly overcome that because of Taquan Dean's brilliance. But we definitely could have overcome that in Conference USA."
That's gone now. The competition is better. The league is better. The spotlight is brighter. It may not be the old Big East. But it is still the Big East.
And don't think for a second Rick Pitino isn't excited to be back at home.
