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There’s never been a career quite like Rick Pitino.
D.A. lays out the full, complicated truth: Pitino is one of the most successful coaches in college basketball history, winning at an unbelievable six different programs and building a résumé few — if any — can match.
But that’s only half the story.
His time at Louisville Cardinals men's basketball ended in complete disgrace, with scandals, vacated wins, and a legacy that still sparks debate across the sport.
And now, as Pitino returns to the spotlight during the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, D.A. argues you can’t just celebrate the wins without acknowledging the full picture.
Greatness? Absolutely.
Clean? Not even close.
This is the full story of one of the most fascinating — and controversial — careers in sports history.
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Welcome to the official channel of Damon Amendolara (D.A.), host on SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio 🏈🔥
Here you’ll find:
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0:00
There has never been a college
0:03
basketball coach and maybe a college
0:06
football coach as well that has had a
0:09
more complicated legacy than Rick
0:12
Patino.
0:14
It is undeniable his ridiculous run of
0:18
success makes him one of, if not the
0:21
single greatest college basketball coach
0:25
who's ever lived. And yet you cannot
0:30
extricate or separate him from massive
0:33
scandal. You can't. When you think about
0:37
how often and the the number of
0:40
different places with so many different
0:43
variants and so many different varying
0:47
resources to consistently win at every
0:51
single school he went to. It began once
0:55
upon a time at Boston University, not
0:58
BC, BEu. Then it went to Providence
1:02
where he brought them to a Final Four in
1:04
the 80s. Then it went to Kentucky where
1:07
he won a national championship in 96 and
1:11
set the the table for Tubby Smith to win
1:13
another one in 1998.
1:16
Then after he left for the NBA and that
1:18
was obviously a disaster, he goes to
1:21
Louisville and wins another national
1:23
championship and goes to Final Fours.
1:26
And then when he's has to leave there
1:28
completely disgraced, he's got to gravel
1:31
his way back into college basketball by
1:33
going to Iona of all schools. Iona in
1:37
the MAC with two A's. Wins there. Gets
1:41
the St. John's job and now has them as
1:43
back-to-back Big East champions. It is
1:47
stunning that he can do this every
1:50
single place he goes. And that you can't
1:54
just wave a wand like Coach K or even
1:58
like Roy Williams or Dean Smith or any
2:02
of these guys that we have as synonymous
2:04
with college basketball because it's a
2:06
feel good. It might be more Bobby
2:09
Knight, but he's a better coach than
2:11
Bobby Knight. It would be like if Bobby
2:13
Knight went and won a national
2:14
championship at Texas Tech. Bobby Knight
2:17
had his problems, but they were not
2:20
massive recruiting scandals or things
2:24
where, you know, anger issues, hey
2:27
Knight, yes, but the Patino thing is
2:30
sorted from top to bottom. And yet
2:35
you cannot
2:37
possibly
2:39
keep him out of this club of greatest
2:41
coaches of all time. It is wild. And
2:45
it's almost as though you have to just
2:48
accept
2:49
this really
2:54
kind of underhanded
2:57
nature of college basketball and accept
3:01
it for what it is.
3:04
so that you could properly kind of rank
3:07
Patino's greatness because it's hard. I
3:11
mean, this is a guy that has made a
3:13
number of bad decisions and specifically
3:15
at Louisville got himself jammed up
3:17
multiple times. multiple times by really
3:20
either bad decisions or I mean complete
3:23
obliviousness if he did not know his
3:25
assistant coaches were throwing stripper
3:26
parties which would seem impossible
3:29
considering we know Rick Patino to his
3:31
core is the most authoritarian figure
3:34
that has ever been in this modern era of
3:37
college basketball to the point where
3:39
his former assistant coaches who
3:41
actually enjoyed the success of coaching
3:43
under him said it was the most miserable
3:45
experience of their life. You're telling
3:47
me that that guy didn't know that
3:49
strippers were invited to recruit
3:51
parties? That I find and you find, I'm
3:53
sure, hard to believe.
3:55
But I'm watching the Big East tournament
3:57
championship game and Yukon is no
4:00
slouch. And the fact that St. John's
4:03
just put a hammer on and MSG Madison
4:08
Square Garden which has become Storage
4:11
South
4:13
has to sit there and listen and watch
4:16
St. John's
4:19
bring the noise, bring the ruckus, bring
4:21
the energy, bring the vibe, and then the
4:24
punishment.
4:26
It just goes to show you how damn good
4:30
Patino is now. He is totally
4:33
untrustworthy with so many different
4:35
parts of his, you know, his being. But
4:39
in ter is he a healthy, centered,
4:41
grounded individual? Of course not. But
4:44
is Rick Patino
4:46
so ruthless
4:48
and so cutthroat
4:51
and so demanding
4:54
to the point where it almost looks like
4:55
he's on door death's doorstep every step
4:58
every day of the week and has for years.
5:02
Has that driven him to have success that
5:05
almost nobody could possibly dream of?
5:08
who think about how many schools he has
5:12
done this at. It leaves you in awe. And
5:17
it's not a happy golucky warm and fuzzy
5:20
thing. That is not who he is. But in
5:23
terms of navigating college basketball
5:27
from the early 80s
5:31
through 2025
5:34
for a guy that was part of that
5:36
generation who all bounced when Beahheim
5:41
and Coach K and Roy and Jay Wright and
5:44
so many others said, "We're out of here.
5:45
We're not dealing with this whatever
5:48
this is. We're not dealing with the the
5:49
paid players, the NIL, the transfer
5:51
portal, whatever this is, we're not
5:53
doing. He stayed in it and he's doing it
5:56
again. He's got resources at St. John's,
5:59
don't get me wrong, but none of these
6:02
schools that have any success don't have
6:05
the resources. And
6:08
what can I say? I don't love giving them
6:11
flowers, but I'm a realist.
6:14
There is nothing more complicated and to
6:17
me stupifying than somebody like him who
6:20
has had this success for 45 freaking
6:23
years with this many iterations in
6:26
schools and just keeps doing it. Patino
6:30
is a better head coach than coach Kay.
6:33
It
6:33
>> it's hard to knock what Patino has done
6:36
over a 30-year
6:38
span. I mean Kay is a Hall of Famer, a
6:40
legend, all of those things too. But I
6:43
mean, for my money, Patino is as good as
6:45
there is.
6:46
>> I think it's a reasonable discussion to
6:49
have. Rick Patino has now won and won
6:52
big at, let's see, Kentucky, at
6:57
Louisville, at St. John's. I know he
6:59
hasn't had tournament success at St.
7:01
John's, but he's gone backtoback winning
7:03
the Big East, which is no small task
7:05
considering St. John's was never able to
7:08
do that in however many years prior to
7:10
him getting there. Before Kentucky, it
7:13
was
7:14
what? It was Boston University, right?
7:17
And then it was UMass.
7:19
>> Oh, Providence.
7:20
>> Providence, rather. Providence. So,
7:22
you're talking about BEu, Providence,
7:24
Kentucky,
7:26
Louisville, St. John's. I mean, Coach K.
7:30
Do we even count?
7:31
>> You said Iona in between there, too.
7:32
>> Oh, yeah. There's an Iona, right? And
7:34
they go to the tournament at Iona. So
7:35
he's done it at seven different schools
7:38
where coach Kay kind of did it at one
7:40
whether you consider his West Point days
7:42
legitimate basketball days. I don't
7:44
know. But yeah, I mean is there any way
7:47
Coach K wins at seven different schools?
7:51
And Patino has evolved. Coach Kay did
7:54
too with the one and
7:57
Patino has won in all these different
7:59
eras. He's won at places with enormous
8:01
resources and with not nearly as many
8:03
resources. His teams tend to get better
8:06
as the year goes on. He's an amazing
8:08
tactician, but also a terrific
8:10
recruiter.
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