CINCINNATI — Richard Pitino probably ought to keep his day job as the Xavier men’s basketball coach, but he might have a shot at getting a side gig in the world of comedy.
Reached by phone on Thursday afternoon after the Musketeers wrapped up practice in preparation for Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. game against St. John’s at Cintas Center, he was asked his thoughts about facing his father, Red Storm coach Rick Pitino, in “this milestone game.”
“The odds of this happening alone are just unbelievable,” the younger Pitino said. “Who would have thought that in some random game in January that I’d be going against my father for win [No. 259]?”
The milestone, of course, is the one in front of his father. A victory by St. John’s (14-5, 7-1 Big East) over Xavier (11-8, 3-5) would give Rick Pitino win No. 900. It would move him ahead of Bob Knight into fourth place on the all-time list and leave him three wins shy of tying Roy Williams for third place.
“He’ll be doing everything humanly possible to stop it,” Rick Pitino said after St. John’s topped Seton Hall at the Garden on Tuesday to extend its winning streak to five games and stay one game behind second-ranked Connecticut in the conference standings.
By that point the gamesmanship already had begun. Pitino said that when he contacted the Xavier staff about the Red Storm’s morning walk-through on game day, director of operations Peyton Walters told him they were slated to have the court at the groggy hour of 6 a.m. He was having none of it.
With the Musketeers doing their walkthrough at 9:30 a.m., he demanded an 8:30 a.m. start time and then told Walters, “And tell my son I don’t want 8:30 to 9:25, I want up to 9:30 . . . [Richard] called back and said, ‘This is bulletin-board material. I’m telling everybody.’ So this is going to be a lot of fun.
“If we lose, I’ll leave my team in Cincinnati.”
The Pitinos planned a dinner out together on Friday night — similar to what they did last season when Richard’s New Mexico team faced the Red Storm at the Garden. But things will be different Saturday.
“If we beat him, I can assure you I will not be consoling him on not getting No. 900 because I’m going to be too happy about a great win,” Richard Pitino said. “And I can assure you that if he gets it, he won’t be consoling me about the loss. We’ve done this. There will be zero consoling in either direction.”
The Pitinos have gone head-to-head four other times. Rick’s teams have won three of them, including last season, when the Red Storm defeated the Lobos.
Former New Mexico head coach and current Xavier head coach Richard Pitino and his father, St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino, hug before a men’s college basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 17, 2024. Credit: Noah K. Murray
Zuby Ejiofor was asked what it’s like when the Pitinos square off and replied, “You’ve seen it. He said that he would leave us in Cincinnati if we didn’t come out with a win, [and] we don’t want to stay over there. It’s high stakes, emotional, a father against a son — but that’s not how we see it . . . Treat it as any regular game, approach it with the correct mindset and do whatever it takes to come out with a win.”
There are plenty of interesting numbers that can be associated with Saturday’s game. The matchup is only the 23rd time in Division I history that a father has coached against a son, and the youngsters have won only three of those. Rick Pitino holds a 44-14 record against his former assistant coaches, which Richard was for three seasons at Louisville.
Rick Pitino mostly deflected talking about the personal achievement of winning 900 games, but on Thursday, when pressed by Newsday in a phone interview, he called the idea of No. 900 “special.”
“I’ve had a lot of great players help me get to 900 and I’ve had a lot of great assistant coaches to help me get there,” Pitino said. “No one does it alone and you’re always part of a team. So although it’s my achievement, I owe a lot of it to my assistant coaches and my players. They got me in the Hall of Fame and they got me to 900 and I’m nothing but appreciative.”
Time change
The St. John’s-Xavier game originally was scheduled to be played at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday and air on TNT and truTV as the second game of a doubleheader after the 12:30 p.m. game between Georgetown and Providence. The adjustment to 1:30 p.m. was made Monday afternoon by the Big East and Turner because of the incoming winter storm.
The Big East announced that the Red Storm’s game will air in its entirety on truTV and can be streamed on HBO Max. At the conclusion of the Georgetown-Providence game, TNT will join the St. John’s-Xavier game in progress.
MOST NCAA WINS IN MEN’S BASKETBALL HISTORY
Mike Krzyzewski: 1,202
Jim Boeheim: 1,116
Roy Williams: 903
Bob Knight: 899
Rick Pitino: 899
Source: Basketball-Reference.com
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
