No, Richard Pitino isn’t planning to succeed his dad at St. John’s.
Last February, Rick Pitino said he wanted Richard to stay at New Mexico until he was done at St. John’s, and then take his place.
Asked about that on a conference call, Richard made light of the suggestion.
“I thought, ‘Oh there’s my dad saying another insane thing, hopefully nobody’s listening to him,’” Richard said Friday on a Zoom call ahead of New Mexico visiting No. 22 St. John’s on Sunday in the NYC Hoops for Heroes Classic at the Garden. “I think he was probably messing around. I’m not sure where that came from. That’s never, ever been a conversation that we’ve had.”
Rick later said he was joking.
“I’m on a [text message group chat] with my whole family and two other people, and they were all kidding about that,” he said at the time.
Richard, 42, led the Lobos to the NCAA Tournament last year and is entering his fourth season at the Mountain West Conference school.
Previously, he was the head coach at Minnesota for eight seasons and worked under his father at Louisville from 2007-09 and 2011-12.
This will mark the fourth time Rick has coached against Richard, with the elder Pitino owning a 2-1 record. Richard beat him for the first time on Dec. 18, 2022, when Rick was at Iona University.
It could be the last time the two coach against each other. There’s no telling how much longer the 72-year-old Rick will coach, although he has said he plans to do it as long as he is healthy. Even Richard doesn’t know.
“What I will say is he’s 72 years old, and I think the way that he lives his life and the way that he coaches, it’s inspiring,” Richard said. “You have a lot of complainers out there, and for a 72-year-old man, he’s never complaining.
“I think he knows that coaching keeps him young, keeps him busy, and I think that he wants to do that as long as he’s healthy and he is healthy, so I know he’s really enjoying it, and I don’t see him slowing down anytime soon.”
