Iona Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino has been involved in a freinds and family tour this season.
Earllier, the Gaels visited Santa Clara to play against one of Pitino’s former assistant Herb Sendek. Then, they played St. Louis, coached by a former Pitino player Travis Ford.
But the game that had the most meaning was /New Mexico, which is coached by Pitino’s son Richard. This was a two hour bonding process.
Iona is easily the class of the MAAC, but his son has an 11-0 team with three impact transfers and should be natonally ranked.
Richard defeated his father, 82-74, Sunday at the Pit in Albuquerque. Losing hurts but Rick was really proud of his son. “We had our chances,” he said. “We didn;t come through on those chances because New Mexico is an excelletnt team. Very
happy for Richard. Very proud of him. This is a rebuilding job and he’s done it in one year. I’m just beaming with pride with what he’s done. Richard knows how to handle it, but the one piece of advise for this team is ‘Don’t embrace it. Get better. Get better take what you did wrong and get better. Because as quickly as you are climbing that mountain
you get knocked right off of it.”
New Mexico is a member of the tough Mountain West, which also includes unbeaten Utah State, one loss UNLV and 11-3 Santa Clara.
This is Richard’s second year there. When he saw Iona was on its way to Hawaii to play in the Diamond Head Classic, he asked his father to make a pit stop because he felt it was a good oppoortunity to play a high profile opponent and attract a good crowd.
Some 14,354 showed up to watch the family reunion, re-creating the type of loud environment that to regularly exist there. Senior gaurd Jaelen House, a transfer from Arizona State, led the Lobos with 22 points, 4 rebounds, five assists and two steals. Four others– including Jamal Mashburn Jr, whose father was an All America for Rick at Kentucky in the 90s, scored in double figures. Rick was so impessed with House, he said he would have offered him a scholarship.
Rick Pitino showed up for the game, as usual wearing a shit. Richard wore a red pull over. Both are competitors and Rick said before the game he expected Richard to want to win by 30.
The score was much closer. New Mexico had a 17 point lead at one point, but Iona (7-3) cut it to 76-73 with two minutes to play after Rick went to a zone.. “I would say being his son, I knew he would play some zone becasue he hasn’t played any,” richard said. “Working for him as an assistant, he always had a zone in his back pocket.”
Both coaches played down the personal aspect of the game. “It’s not about beating my dad,” he added. “Im lucky my dad would play here because we.benefited. That’s a nationally televised game he did not need to play. Happy we won, but i dont look at it as I beat him. I look at it as New Mexico beat Iona.”
The father and son had dinner afterwards and were ready to resume cheering for each other the rest of the season.
during the game, Richard’s eight year old son Jack was seeing cheering loudly for the Lobos. He had predicted New Mexico would win 85-79– although he initially said 100-0.
Richard wants Jack to keep having fun with it. “He does need to know we are going to lose. Hopefully not soon,” Richard said. ‘He also needs to know that student section trash talking can;t carry over to third-grade basketball. We’ve had a couple issues there as well.”
