Rick and Richard Pitino

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Until further notice, Billy Donovan remains the most dazzling branch on the Rick Pitino coaching tree.

Until another guy wins two national titles, crashes two other Final Fours and survives 10 seasons as an NBA head coach, Donovan is The Guy.

But after Billy the Kid?

Take your pick. Make the call.

Tubby Smith, with the 1998 NCAA title he won at Kentucky, sits in the first row behind Donovan. Mick Cronin (UCLA) and Kevin Keatts (just fired at North Carolina State) have Final Fours on their resumes.

Jim O'Brien had a solid run as an NBA head coach. Scott Davenport won an NCAA Division II title at Bellarmine. Ralph Willard did memorable things at Western Kentucky.

Over the next two weeks, we'll rearrange the team picture. The Pitino Coaching Tree is making news and making waves.

Kevin Willard of Maryland, a former Pitino assistant, and Mark Pope of Kentucky, a former Pitino player, sit two victories away from their first Final Fours.

Willard will have to beat Florida, the top seed in the West Regional. Pope can reach the Final Four in his first season at UK by defeating Tennessee and then either Purdue or Houston this weekend in Indianapolis.

But let's not forget the guy who rarely gets proper credit, the guy who has delivered impressive results under the most challenging circumstances — Richard Pitino, who will join his father in the Big East Conference as the new coach at Xavier University.

Yes, I'm certain there have been benefits being the son of a coach with the record and connections of Rick Pitino. Now 42, Richard was 29 when he got his first head coaching opportunity at Florida International in 2012. At 29 most guys are throwing elbows for top assistant coaching positions.

But I'm certain there have also been challenges, challenges that only folks like the sons of Bob Knight, Jim Boeheim and Eddie Sutton could understand.

The constant comparisons to your father. The measuring of your record to Dad's record. The questions about why your personality isn't like his personality. The impossible attempts to step away from an immense shadow.

Richard Pitino has handled it all wonderfully, doing it his way, with an impressive display of self confidence and an endearing sense of humor.

A sense of entitlement? Never seen it. An ability to learn from his mistakes and make fun of himself? Seen plenty of it, during his time working for his Dad at Louisville or when he assisted Donovan at Florida.

Last week, as New Mexico started its NCAA Tournament path in Cleveland, he was asked (again) about his Hall of Fame father, who had just won a national coach of the year award.

The question was about how much his father had helped shape his coaching philosophy.

"Yeah, a lot," Richard Pitino said "Very lucky to have worked for him. I mean, certainly grown up around him my whole life.

"I think the biggest thing that I try to take from him is just his relentless drive to win and make people better. We do it differently, but that's more because he's 72 and I'm 42. But stylistically, defensively, we really think the same things."

Let's remember what Richard Pitino has done over the last four seasons. He has bounced back from being fired at the University of Minnesota.

Last season he led the Lobos to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 10 seasons. Last week Pitino led New Mexico to its first NCAA Tournament victory since Steve Alford won a first-round game in 2012.

Alford was three coaches ago in Albuquerque. Alford was followed by Craig Neal, who was followed by Paul Weir. Whiff and whiff. New Mexico has wrecked the careers of other coaches.

Over four seasons, Richard Pitino averaged 22 wins at a program that won six of 22 games the season before he arrived — and two of those victories were against Our Lady of the Lake and LeTourneau.

He won four games in the Mountain West Conference Tournament last season to earn an NCAA bid and then topped that by going 27-8, 17-3 to win the MWC regular season title this season.

That was Shaka Smart and Marquette that Pitino and New Mexico upset in the first round. That was Tom Izzo and Michigan State the Lobos led at halftime Sunday before losing to the Spartans, 71-63, in the Round of 32.

Izzo was steadfast is expressing his respect for the work that Richard Pitino did with the Gophers. Even before Xavier hired Pitino to replace Sean Miller, Izzo doubled down on his endorsement of Pitino last weekend before Michigan State and New Mexico played in Cleveland.

"It was a tough situation he was in (at Minnesota)," Izzo said. "I did stick up for him.

"If you don't stick up for coaches, who's going to? So I looked at that as one of my jobs, especially if it was coaches I respect, and were doing it the right way, and he did.

"I would never talk highly of a guy I didn't respect or like. I just wouldn't talk about him. So, it's easy to talk about him because I do like him, and I do respect him."

The work Pitino did at Minnesota is viewed differently today than it was in 2021. He won the NIT in 2014, his first season in the Twin Cities. He made the NCAA Tournament but was upset by Middle Tennessee three years later.

He returned to the NCAA Tournament in 2019, defeating Chris Mack and Louisville before losing to — who else? — Izzo and Michigan State.

Back-to-back losing seasons ended his time at Minnesota.

But Pitino did better without Minnesota than the Gophers did without Pitino. Minnesota just fired Pitino's replacement, Ben Johnson, who delivered one winning season while losing more than 56% of his games.

Richard Pitino moved past his firing and earned another power conference job. He'll move into the Big East, a league he grew up in, attending Providence and assisting his father when Louisville was in that league.

It will be fascinating to watch him compete in a league against his father, Danny Hurley and UConn, Smart and Marquette, Doug McDermott and Creighton and the guy that Villanova hires to bring that program back to championship glory.

Richard Pitino is not the most dazzling branch on the Pitino coaching tree -- at least not yet. But in many ways, he is the most impressive.

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