MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota fired Richard Pitino on Monday after the men’s basketball coach amassed a 54-96 regular season record over eight years in the Big Ten, finishing just three conferences above 10th.
The Golden Gophers went 14-15 this season, dropping 11 of their last 14 games. They were on the road 0-10, one of only three major conference teams in the country without a road victory.
Athletic director Mark Coyle would address reporters on Tuesday morning. He called Pitino “a great person and coach” in a statement circulated by the university.
“Such decisions are never easy, but after evaluating this season and the previous eight years of our program under Richard, it is clear to me that new leadership is needed,” said Coyle. “We have one of the best practices in the country, a historic competition venue and a state that produces top talent. This is an extremely attractive course.”
Pitino was unavailable for comment, but he posted a thank-you message to Minnesota on Twitter Monday night with a photo of him and his kids at the Williams Arena.
“Always wanted to properly represent Minnesota on a day-to-day basis with class and integrity,” Pitino tweeted“Fired for what the future holds!”
According to an Albuquerque Journal report, Pitino was one of the finalists for the coaching vacancy in New Mexico. If hired elsewhere, Minnesota would be off the hook for a $ 1.7 million buyout, according to the language in his three-year contract. Payments are stopped when Pitino is given ‘similar work’, which is defined in the deal as an NCAA Division I head coach, a head or assistant coach of a professional team, an administrator or director of an NCAA Division I program, or commentator for a national broadcaster.
Coyle should have enough strong candidates to consider. Two sons of former Gophers head coaches, Eric Musselman (Arkansas) and Brian Dutcher (San Diego State), are proven program builders with teams currently competing in the NCAA tournament. Craig Smith, Utah, and Niko Medved, Colorado, are Minnesota residents and currently have success running mid-major programs. Then there’s Gophers alum Ryan Saunders, who was fired last month as coach of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves.
Hired at the age of 30 with a year of experience as a head coach at Florida International, Pitino led the Gophers to an NIT championship in his first season. However, only two NCAA tournaments followed in 2017 and 2019.
The Gophers were poised to return to the Big Dance this season after beating Iowa, Ohio State, Michigan and Purdue – ranked No. 5, No. 9, No. 4, and No. 20 respectively in the AP poll. 8 March. – before the injuries of starters Gabe Kalscheur and Liam Robbins accelerated a new late-season slide.
The Gophers just didn’t take enough pictures to keep up and had to work too hard to get them. In the Division I rankings, they were 13th in 3-point attempts and 334th in 3-point percentage as of Friday.
Pitino was quick-witted and balanced and never pretended to ignore public criticism. After a win then-no. 6 Maryland in 2016, Pitino joked that he could “go inside Starbucks instead of going through the drive-through.” He spoke the same halftime after Minnesota lost in the Big Ten-tournament on Thursday, ahead of his postseason encounter with Coyle.
“We all have losses. That’s okay. I have a great relationship with Mark. If he gives me bad news, it doesn’t mean I’m going to flip a desk or something,” said Pitino.
Minnesota’s best run under Pitino was in 2017, when a 7-0 record in February yielded a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten and a No. 5 seed in the NCAA tournament. The Gophers were one-and-done. Two years later, they defeated Louisville in the NCAA tournament to reach the second round.
Richard Pitino, the son of longtime college and pro coach Rick Pitino, who was the first to win NCAA championships at two different schools with Kentucky and Louisville, was selected by former Minnesota athletic director Norwood Teague to replace Tubby Smith. The older Pitino, now the coach at Iona, is back in the NCAA tournament this month as the No. 15 seed.
After striking out Fred Hoiberg, Flip Saunders, Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens, Teague received strong support from Billy Donovan’s Richard Pitino, the current NBA coach with the Chicago Bulls who had Pitino on his staff in Florida from 2009 until 2011.
Pitino and his wife and three children became fond of Minnesota, despite its East Coast roots, but ultimately failed to forge a strong connection with the state’s high school circuit, with Minnesota spawning great prospects every year.
Sure enough, two of the best players on the 2019 team, Amir Coffey and Daniel Oturu, were both born in Minnesota and now with the NBA’s LA Clippers. However, there were too many recruiting misses, leaving the Gophers with little depth when injuries were sustained.
One of those gadgets came with freshman class in 2017, when Pitino and his staff signed Isaiah Washington with New York point guard and passed Minnesota-born McKinley Wright IV. Wright became the all-time assists leader in Colorado, where he was a three-time All-Pac-12 player. Washington switched after two seasons with the Gophers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.