Rick Pitino has constructed a gauntlet of massive nonconference tilts on St. John’s schedule, including the likes of Alabama and Ole Miss at Madison Square Garden, Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic and both Iowa State and Baylor in the Players Era Men’s Championship.
Buckle up.
But the future Hall of Famer, fresh off leading St. John’s to a Big East regular season and tournament title, also had inclinations of playing Louisville in 2025-26, but those well-intentioned plans fell awry, according to CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander. Pitino doubled down on his willingness to return to Louisville for a nonconference game in an appearance this week with CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein on Inside College Basketball Now.
The history between Louisville and Pitino is complicated, marred with scandal, lawsuits, exile, tons of wins, three Final Fours and a now-vacated — but always memorable — 2013 national championship.
“I had a lot of problems with the University of Louisville, and there’s certain things I’ll never forgive that they did,” Pitino told Rothstein. “But that has nothing to do with the present administration at the University of Louisville, because the people that I was upset about are no longer Board of Trustees. And I really wasn’t upset that they fired me. Anybody can be fired. I’m okay with that.
“It was the treatment they gave Tom Jurich, but just recently, they named the street outside of the young of the practice facility, ‘Tom Jurich Way.’ So all is forgiven, all is forgotten. I no longer even think the slightest bit negatively about the University of Louisville, and I would go back in a New York minute. Everything’s forgiven. Tom Jurich Way is up there, I really don’t care too much about myself. My staff did some things that I did not appreciate, and I have no problem with them terminating me at all. I’ve got to take responsibility for what happened, but I also take responsibility for 17…
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