Rick Pitino — post-game

[PonyPride]

I realize this might not inspire a huge amount of sympathy, but another complaint about Rick Pitino:

After games, the teams hold consecutive press conferences — visitors first, then SMU. Sometimes the players and coaches meet the media together, sometimes separately, but they always make themselves available to talk about the game, win or lose.

Not Rick Pitino. Instead of going upstairs to the media room for a press conference, he made it known that he would address the media in the Louisville locker room. The press conferences still were set up to go one after the other, but Coach Diva thought it was far more difficult for him to come up to the media room to speak on a well-lit stage with a microphone than it would be for the assembled members of the media — there were several dozen in attendance — to all go downstairs to the locker room. For the TV stations in attendance, that would mean lugging cameras and tripods. At the end of the Louisville media session, the media could have either headed up the stairs (cameras and tripods in tow) or wait in shifts for the elevator to get back upstairs, in which case many would have missed the media session with SMU coach Larry Brown, and perhaps the subsequent one with Nick Russell and Shawn Williams. One reaction to complaints was that video of his media session was provided for those members of the media who decided not to — or, for some reason, couldn't — go down to the locker room.

Yes, Pitino wanted to talk to his team — every coach does, win or lose — but it's not like he would have had to brave the Moody Coliseum concourse and risk hearing the catcalls of the PonyFans. There is a secure passage that visiting coaches and players take to get to the media room. Not one this season has complained about the distance or the path to the media room.

Pitino's decision not to go to the media room raised the number of coaches who couldn't bring themselves to make the trek … to ONE. Several coaches whose teams have come to Moody have been none too happy after their games, because of a close loss or because their teams just got thumped by SMU. Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin was not in a pleasant mood, to say the least, after SMU hammered his team, but he managed to man up and find time for the media (where he was disappointed about his team's performance but was more than gracious about Larry Brown and the Mustangs). The same can be said for UCF's Donnie Jones, Houston's James Dickey and Temple's Fran Dunphy. Connecticut's Kevin Ollie was so gracious you would have thought his team had just won the first game at the renovated Moody Coliseum, although his admiration for Brown had to be increased by the fact that he played for Brown with the Philadelphia 76ers. Josh Pastner of Memphis walked in and acted like he was running for office — he smiled, shook hands and complimented nearly everyone in the room.

True, it wasn't a huge crime by Pitino, not taking the time and effort to get to the media room. But it's the right, professional thing to do. EVERY other SMU opponent — for the men's team's games and the women's team's opponents — managed to do it, win or lose. Larry Brown talks to every reporter the same way, whether it's ESPN's Stephen A. Smith (who stopped by Moody today) or a student reporter, and when the Mustangs are on the road, he reportedly will even stand out in the hallway to answer whatever questions a reporter asks, whether he knows the reporter or not.

Some reporters went to the locker room to talk to Pitino (who, if memory serves, coached the team that won last night, so he couldn't even justify his uncooperative behavior by blaming his disappointment over watching his team get clobbered by SMU). By all accounts, no reporter passed out or dropped dead during the journey. But when you're in another team's arena, it doesn't cost much to bend your own routine a little in order to accommodate the team that sets up a media gathering and to help the reporters in attendance do their jobs. The ultimate professional, Brown gets it and always does the right thing. Pitino, on the other hand, came across as a sore loser, petty and childlike.

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

Well imagine that...

[Rebel10]

Well it's not like we are going to play them again at Moody. So I guess problem solved.

[ojaipony]

He's a major [deleted]. Karma will deal with him one way or the other.

[smusic 00]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[SMULaxer]

Not to worry. Life gave us del friscos and gave him Applebee's

[SMULaxer]

Not to worry. Life gave us del friscos and gave him Applebee's

[2ndandlong]

Thanks for posting this.

[GiddyUp]

what a d - bag. Oh well, maybe we'll see them in Memphis w/ less turnovers and beat their a s s.

[East Coast Mustang]

I would love one more shot at Louisville. Pitino is a true [deleted] but it's too bad we're losing them to the ACC next year- easy-to-hate coaches like Pitino, Pastner, and Cronin are great for the league.

[SMU 86]

Pastner is a pretty good guy that has had nothing bad to say about SMU.

[SMULaxer]

Pastner is a pretty good guy that has had nothing bad to say about SMU.

He's a [deleted]. At least he acted like one in dallas.

[TidePony]

Guess he was in the fog of war as JJ would say ...

[SMU 86]

Pastner is a pretty good guy that has had nothing bad to say about SMU.

He's a [deleted]. At least he acted like one in dallas.

I thought that he kind of had fun with the students. One time he even gave the students a thumbs up for a funny comment that they made.

[ojaipony]

Pastner is a pretty good guy that has had nothing bad to say about SMU.

I dislike him less now that we beat them. Cronin is a little [deleted], though. Short man's inferiority syndrome masked as a "tough guy".