Louisville coach Rick Pitino says Louisville will remain in the Big East and won’t head to the Big 12.
“I doubt it,” he said on Thursday’s Big East conference call. “I think that there was a chance last year but from what I understand some of the members of the [Big 12] conference don’t want to split the revenue and they want to stick at 11, so at least personally I’m hoping we stay put.
“But you never know in this landscape today, I don’t decide those things.” (more…)
NEWARK — Eleven Big East teams remain alive for an NCAA bid.
That’s not to say 11 will make it. They probably won’t.
But 11 teams are currently at or near the .500 mark in the league, which generally is good enough to generate an invite to the Big Dance.
After Saturday’s wild day of action, the following teams are above or at .500, or within striking distance: Syracuse (9-1), Marquette (7-2), Georgetown (6-3), Notre Dame (5-3), USF (5-3), UConn (4-3), Louisville (5-4), Cincinnati (5-4), West Virginia (5-4), Seton Hall (4-5) and Rutgers (4-5). (more…)
Louisville coach Rick Pitino says Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse is the most “overpowering” arena in college basketball.
“The only place I have found that to me was overpowering was Kansas,” Pitino said Thursday on the Big East con call. “Now, I have not taken a team to Duke. There really is not any place I’ve entered where it’s, ‘God, that’s just incredible, what an advantage that is.’”
He added, “There are some overpowering places, in terms of the amount of people, like Rupp Arena’s overpowering.”
Just ask Baylor about Kansas. (more…)
A year ago at this time, Louisville coach Rick Pitino said he told Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard it would take “four or five years” to turn things around from the situation he inherited from former coach Bobby Gonzalez.
Relating a conversation he had with Willard in December 2010, Pitino told SNY.tv: “You better put your blueprint together and say what you’re building is not going to come to fruition until four or five years from now and you’ve got to be ready to take it.”
Fast forward a year and Willard is way ahead of Pitino’s timetable. (more…)
Rick Pitino didn’t use the word “retire,” but he said Tuesday that 2016-17 will be his last season as a basketball coach.
“When you’re 59, you’re realistic that you don’t have a whole lot of years left,” Pitino said before the No. 4 Cardinals played No. 12 Georgetown on Wednesday. “My contract’s going to run out in 2017. I’m not coaching anymore after that.”
Pitino has led three programs — Providence, Kentucky and Louisville — to the Final Four, and has also coached the Knicks and Boston Celtics. (more…)
Help is on the way for Louisville.
Freshman guard Kevin Ware had his first practice today (Wednesday), one day after finals ended. He will be eligible to play Saturday when the No. 5 Cardinals play Memphis at the KFC Yum Center, although Cardinals coach Rick Pitino has indicated Ware may not play until the Dec. 23 game against Western Kentucky.
He figures to play some backup point guard behind Peyton Siva, but can also contribute at the two and three positions.
The addition of Ware should help Pitino’s club offset the losses of Wayne Blackshear (torn labrum) and Mike Marra (ACL). (more…)
LOUISVILLE — Peyton Siva’s driving layup with 1.4 seconds remaining in overtime gave No. 6 Louisville a 62-60 win over No. 20 Vanderbilt.
But it also helped the Big East — or as Louisville coach Rick Pitino calls it, “The Big Country” — go a perfect 4-0 Friday in the Big East/SEC Challenge.
“I mean right now, the Big East, we could potentially take San Diego State into the Big East, so we’re going to call it the ‘Big Country,’” Pitino said. “It’s no longer the Big East, it’s the ‘Big Country Conference,’ seriously.
“Or the ‘Big Universe.’” (more…)
Kevin Ware will soon suit up at Louisville.
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A 6-4 guard from Conyers, Ga., Ware met NCAA intial eligibility requirements and will join the team Dec. 14, the day after the fall semester final examinations. Ware initially signed with Tennessee, but was released from his Letter of Intent after the Bruce Pearl firing. He later committed to Central Florida, but changed course after UCF came under investigation by the NCAA. The investigation led to the resignation of AD Keith Tribble. UCF coach Donnie Jones was also suspended three games. (more…) |
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He would be eligible for a medical redshirt, having played in just two games this season. Marra went down with 12:17 remaining in the second half of the Cardinals’ 68-48 victory over Lamar. An MRI at Jewish Hospital on Sunday night revealed the damage. Surgery will be scheduled later and the normal recovery time from an ACL reconstruction is 9-12 months. Marra scored six points in each of Louisville’s first two games. He averaged 6.2 points and two assists as a sophomore last season, starting 11 games. Louisville had previously lost freshman guard and McDonald’s All-American Wayne Blackshear for the season to a torn labrum that will require surgery. |
In this video interview from Big East Media Day, former St. Benedict’s Prep and Manhattan College guard Chris Smith talks about his unusual path to Louisville, his big brother, Denver Nuggets guard J.R. Smith, and the Cardinals prospects this season.
“Adam Zagoria sees the story behind the daily happenings.”
~ St. Anthony Coach Bob Hurley
Zagoria covers the New York Knicks and Big East hoops for NBA.com and SNY.tv. He also appears as a Big East Basketball Insider on SNY and 1050 ESPN Radio.
He is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, SI and Basketball Times.
