PROVIDENCE -- Rick Pitino wanted Florida to name the O'Connell Center court after Billy Donovan.
He expects they will, maybe not in the near future, but someday.
And that's one of the main reasons why the current Louisville head coach and former Kentucky head coach didn't want his star guard on the 1987 Providence Final Four team to take the Kentucky job last month.
Speaking to the beloved Friar faithful Saturday night at the Rhode Island Convention Center that was there celebrating that improbable Final Four team from 20 years ago, Pitino mentioned his desire to see Donovan honored with a court naming by the Gator nation.
Ultimately, Pitino said he didn't want Donovan to be received harshly as the Kentucky coach when he would go back to Gainesville the way Pitino was booed when he returned to Lexington as the Louisville coach -- four years later.
"I just didn't feel that he should go through what I did -- after a four-year hiatus -- to go from winning back-to-back national championships and then go to your rival the next year," Pitino told ESPN.com. "That would be difficult to go back to Florida. I wanted him to have the fruits of all his labor, which he will get now."
Does Pitino, who coached the Friars and "Billy the Kid" to that 1987 Final Four in New Orleans, see the court being named after Donovan now?
"I do," he said. "I do. He won back-to-back championships. He's much deserving for that. Maybe because of his age it won't happen now, but it will happen some day."
Pitino said he never told Donovan not to take the Kentucky job. All he said to Donovan was "to make a decision on your family's happiness. We didn't speak as much about Kentucky, it was more about the pros (NBA) and moving and to think your family's happiness because he'll be successful wherever he goes."
Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said last week that he expects Donovan to sign a new, extended contract within the coming weeks. Donovan said Sunday night that he is committed to Florida, dismissing the NBA rumors out there that he would be headed to Memphis or Orlando.
Pitino's arrival in Providence this weekend was on the heels of signing an extension that will keep him at Louisville through 2013. Pitino said the idea was athletic director Tom Jurich's after he hired his son Richard to be an assistant coach.
"(Jurich) said to me that he thought I would retire in three or four years but now that I had hired my son maybe I wasn't thinking that way and so he said, 'How about extending your contract,' and I said, 'Fine by me, I'm not going anywhere,'" Pitino said.
Pitino added that his son had put in the time going to school at PC for four years, working as a volunteer assistant to PC coach Tim Welsh, helping out at a high school, then going as an assistant to Ron Everhart at Northeastern and Duquesne.
"I would have loved to have seen him with Billy (Donovan) but the second best thing is to be with me," Pitino said. "He wants to have his own identity, and it's time for him to be at this level and recruit at this level."
As for the Cardinals, who could be a Final Four team next season, Pitino said he's as excited about this group as any other at Louisville and said it's his most talented team (that includes the 2005 Final Four team).
Part of the reason is the team is healthy for the first time in years after battling nagging injuries to David Padgett, Juan Palacios and Andre McGee. But two of the main reasons why the Cards could be a favorite, let alone in the Big East, are Derrick Caracter and fellow rising sophomore big man Earl Clark, Pitino said.
"(Derrick) is a terrific kid who has a weight problem but I think we have it under control," said Pitino, who sent Caracter home to New Jersey during December to get control of his life, only to let him return soon after. "He stayed within five pounds (of his playing weight listed at 268) the whole second half of the year. We weighed him (Saturday) in New Jersey and he had only put on two pounds so that's a miracle. If he keeps it under control then he'll probably only play one more year with us (before he declares for the NBA draft)."
Pitino said he's already working on different positions for Palacios and Clark to ensure there is proper playing time.
"Earl Clark is coming into his own and will be one of the most gifted players in the country," Pitino said of Clark, who played just 16 minutes a game as a freshman but showed he could board and block shots. Both Clark and Caracter would need to stay out of foul trouble for the Cards to be truly effective inside. But with Padgett and Terrence Williams, the Cards should have plenty of options. Pitino said the backcourt of Edgar Sosa, Jerry Smith and McGee could be one of the best in the country.
Final nuggets
• Pitino and Donovan were the rock stars at the celebration dinner Saturday night. The adulation of these two men, and let alone the entire '87 team, begs the question: What if the Friars had actually won the Final Four that year? Seriously, the Friar faithful holds this team in such high regard and they should, considering the Friars were one of the most exciting teams that season -- the first for the 3-point shot. The win over Georgetown and then dismantling of UAB late in the season, followed by a tight game against Austin Peay and blowouts of Alabama and Georgetown before Syracuse beat the squad in the semifinals, were quite impressive.
• The staff that year was quite amazing. Pitino's assistants were Stu Jackson (third in command at the NBA), Herb Sendek (now of Arizona State), Jeff Van Gundy (Houston Rockets), Gordon Chiesa (longtime NBA assistant) and Sean Kearney (now at Notre Dame as an assistant).
"I've always said that we should give royalty checks to both of them (Pitino and Donovan) since we were all the beneficiaries," Van Gundy said. "The common basketball theme was the 3-point shot and the importance of defending the 3-point shot. (The NBA had it and Pitino had been in the league prior to his two years at PC as an assistant with the Knicks) Only if you were in the NBA would you have known how to exploit it.
"(Pitino's) experience had a huge impact in the game and eventually made everyone rethink how to play offensively and defend the 3-point line. Billy was the Steve Nash of that time. They were a bunch of hard-working average players."
Also, Marty Conlon was a freshman on that team and ended up doing quite well financially in the NBA.
• Pitino and Donovan spoke glowingly about the work ethic of that team, something that would be hard to duplicate under today's 20-hour a week rule restrictions. The team used to practice for an hour in the morning, go through scouting for another 30 minutes (all before 7:30 a.m.), have an hour of individual workouts during the school day, practice for three hours later in the afternoon and then the staff would break everything down at night.
"They weren't the most talented, but no team I've ever had worked as hard," Pitino said.
• Boeheim publicly apologized in a humorous way to Joanne Pitino for trying and successfully luring Pitino to be his assistant coach 31 years ago when he showed up unannounced after the wedding. The honeymoon was postponed as the Pitinos moved into a home Boeheim shared with five other men in Syracuse.
• Overall it was quite a night for PC as the current Friars hoped that they could be, at the very least, a tournament team next season (which they should be). Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese and former commissioner Dave Gavitt, Boeheim and Pitino all praised current PC coach Tim Welsh for the job he has done as he attempts to get the Friars back to the Dance for the first time since 2004.
• One addendum to Boeheim: I want to make it clear that Gary Walters, the outgoing NCAA Tournament selection committee chair, didn't publicly say that the Orange didn't deserve a bid. Walters said the consensus of the 10-member committee was that the Orange wasn't one of the 34 best at-large teams. Just a clarification if there was any misunderstanding of a reference to the pair after the NABC-NCAA selection committee meeting last week in San Antonio.
Andy Katz
