Musketeers Beat: Father Shows Best As Rick Pitino Captures No. 900 With 88-83 Win Over Son Richard, Musketeers

CINCINNATI — Talk about bittersweet.

Richard Pitino was a very proud coach Saturday. He was proud of his team for playing one of the elite teams in the Big East as tough as anyone this season, taking a commanding 16-point lead twice in the second half.

He was proud to be coaching against the man he calls the best college coach of all-time, who also happens to be his dad. And he was proud of the way his team battled to the very end.

What he could’ve done without was his dad Rick’s St John’s team celebrating his 900th college coaching win at mid-court following an 88-83 loss to the Red Storm Saturday before a raucous and sometimes angry sellout crowd at Cintas Center. Players and coaches celebrated with Pitino on the court and poured Gatorade on him in the locker room.

“I’m happy for him that he won 900. I think he’s the best coach to ever coach college basketball,” Richard said. “He’d have a lot more if he had stayed at Kentucky.”

But of course, the allure of the NBA and the iconic Boston Celtics was too much to turn down and he left after his title in 1996 in Lexington. Pitino left the Celtics in the middle of his third season in Boston and is best remembered for his “Larry Bird is not walking through that door” speech following a Celtics home loss on March 1, 2000. The next year, he was gone. He took on a new challenge, the University of Louisville and would not return to the NBA.

“But when your dad is 73 you just want to be happy and healthy,” the younger Pitino continued. “We all are reminded way too much of how short life is. So to see him doing great coaching, being celebrated at St John’s like that. That’s all I care about. So it keeps him young. I hope he continues to coach. He’s a phenomenal coach, but I’m really, really lucky to have him as a father.”

Dylan Darling hit a go-ahead three with 53.2 seconds remaining and finished with 11 points off the bench to lead Rick Pitino and St. John’s to a much-anticipated milestone victory in the history of the hall of fame coach. On a day when Tu Holloway had his No. 52 retired and revealed in the rafters during a halftime ceremony, it was the Pitino family affair that overshadowed everything.

“I’ve said this all along to you guys all year long, how enjoyable they are,” Rick said. “But (that) was the icing on the cake, because a lot of teams would break, down 12 down 10, and they never broke they just stayed with it. Dylan Darling, he’s got balls as big as church bells. I mean, it’s unbelievable. Bryce Hopkins made big plays. Ian (Jackson) kept us in the game in the first half. So it was a great team performance.”

“I’m proud of our guys. I mean, St John’s, one of the best teams in the country,” the Xavier coach said. “(We) did a lot of really good things to jump them early, their defensive pressure, their size, their physicality, their toughness, certainly wore us down. We gave up some live ball turnovers, so disappointed, but told them to hold their heads high. St John’s is a championship program. We’re going to get there and proud of the effort from our guys.”

St. John’s had to rally from 16 points down in the second half to give Rick Pitino his 900th career win as a college coach, the fourth coach in Division I history to reach the plateau. It was the second time in as many games that St. John’s wiped out a double-digit second half lead to post the win.

Pitino improved to 4-1 lifetime against his son in head-to-head matchups. Bryce Hopkins added 18 points and Dillon Mitchell chipped in with 17 for St. John’s (15-5, 8-1), which won its sixth straight. Father and son will match up again in New York on Feb. 9.

Tre Carroll scored 18 of his career-high 31 points in the second while Malik Messina-Moore added 18 for Xavier (11-9, 3-6). Jovan Milicevic chipped in with 14 before fouling out with three minutes to go. Despite St. John’s coming in as one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country (13.8 per game), Carroll was dejected and disgusted that St. John’s had 13 on the day and outrebounded Xavier, 39-32, outscoring them in second chance points 16-4.

“Losing sucks, especially losing by one point against Creighton,” Carroll said. “And this game, we had this game, but St John’s, they didn’t stop coming. They kept going. They killed us on the glass. We weren’t able to capitalize on our offense in the second half, really turnovers and not having really any second chance opportunities like they did. So that’s Big East basketball. If you’re not going to rebound the ball, you’re gonna lose and that was the (result).”

His coach tried to offer some perspective later in his press conference.

“St John’s is significantly better rebounding team,” Richard said of his Musketeers. “I would say that if we play St John’s 10 out of 10, it’s gonna be hard to out rebound them. They’re physical, they’re strong, they’re tough again, foul trouble, but I’m not surprised. We did a great job out on the boards as best we can.”

In a tribute to his father and in a break from his typical casual attire, Richard came out in a suit and tie. The two, donning nearly identical suits exchanged an embrace in front of the Xavier bench minutes before introductions.

“They are as tough an offensive team as there is in the Big East,” Rick said of his son Richard’s Xavier team. “They are tough. They shoot at all five positions. They handled it at all five positions, and not because he’s my son. They are extremely well-coached.”

St. John’s opened on fire, hitting eight of their first 10 shots from the field to take a 20-11 lead. Leading the way was Ian Jackson, who made his first five shots and scored 13 of the first 20 points for the Red Storm.

With St. John’s up nine, the game turned dramatically when Joson Sanon fouled Messina-Moore on a made 3-pointer with 13 minutes left in the first half. Messina-Moore converted the free throw to complete the four-point play to start a 7-0 Musketeer run.

Xavier used the momentum to go on a 36-13 run and take a 47-33 lead on back-to-back threes from Messina-Moore with under three minutes left in the half.

Xavier came out of halftime with a pair of layups from Jovan Milicevic in the opening 50 seconds that gave them their biggest lead, 53-37, triggering a quick timeout from Rick Pitino. The Milicevic basket with 19:10 to go would be the final Xavier basket for nearly seven minutes as St. John’s mounted a comeback.

St. John’s drew to within one, 56-55, on a Dillon Mitchell dunk with 11:03 left. Xavier built the lead back to eight, 63-55, with the next seven points. But St. John’s answered with a 17-6 run for a 72-69 lead.

“I don’t think we were inconsistent. I think that’s a damn good team,” Richard Pitino said. “So we’re going to give them off (Sunday), and we’re going to watch this film. We’re going to move on. So, I mean, St John’s is a really, really good team, so disappointed that we blew the lead, but a lot of that to do with them.”

And it had everything to do with his dad.