LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Rick Pitino isn’t known for looking back.
But in a new interview with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, the Hall of Fame coach took an unusually reflective turn, revisiting the scandal that ended his 17-year tenure at Louisville with fresh candor and an admission that goes further than he’s gone before.
“I deserved to be fired,” Pitino said on an episode of The Andy Beshear Podcast taped in New York on Tuesday. “Because my assistant coaches did the wrong thing. And looking back on it, I learned a valuable lesson: who to hire, who to trust, what to believe in.”
Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford
It’s not the first time Pitino has let Louisville off the hook for its decision to fire him in the aftermath of the FBI’s investigation into the Adidas college basketball’s pay-for-play scheme. But it is the first time he has talked about what he called some mistakes in hiring assistant coaches, and why he made them.
“I was trying to get more high school one-and-done players at Louisville,” Pitino said. “I never went in that area, right? And John Calipari was having great success at Kentucky. And so I hired some people I should not have hired. And I learned a valuable lesson with that.”
For all the years Pitino and Calipari played coy about their rivalry, this was as close to a strategic concession as Pitino has made -- that Kentucky’s success under Calipari led him to shift recruiting tactics at Louisville, and that the shift unraveled everything.
It’s a revealing moment in a wide-ranging, 30-minute conversation that touches on everything from his coaching evolution to his time in Greece, from Billy Donovan’s transformation at Providence to Richie Farmer’s short-lived departure from Kentucky. Pitino, now 73, sounds more relaxed than he did even during his Iona tenure, more willing to turn over the stones of his past without the usual edge or defensiveness.
Rick Pitino's conversation with Gov. Andy Beshear ran 30 minutes and covered considerably more ground than his remarks about Louisville.
“There’s always a learning experience,” he said. “As a leader, you’ve got to understand when you make mistakes. You’ve got to correct the mistakes by not blaming others.”
Pitino is a testament to the value of flexibility. He came into college as the earliest full-fledged adaptor of the three-point shot. He pressed full court. But he got to a Final Four at Louisville with a team that had only seven healthy players and no true point guard by improvising. He took the worst three-point shooting team in Final Four history to the national semifinals. And he won a national championship playing a modified matchup zone that opponents couldn’t figure out.
He still talks about his time in Lexington like it was a storybook, calling it “Camelot,” saying he never had a bad day there. His memories of Louisville are more complicated, but still, he says, overwhelmingly positive.
“Louisville was also a great experience for me,” Pitino said. “We went to three Final Fours, won the championship. So that was a great experience also. I spent a long time in the Commonwealth.”
He may have expected to spend even longer. And in hindsight, the swing for the fences — for one-and-dones, for NBA stars, for what Kentucky was doing up the road — didn’t just come up short. It helped to cost him the job.
“It taught me, you know, delegating is great, but you’ve got to delegate with people you trust that will do the right things,” Pitino said.
That admission, in some ways, marks a final chapter. Not in Pitino’s coaching career — St. John’s has won 10 straight and he sounds energized — but in his reckoning with the end of the Louisville era.
This wasn’t a press conference. It wasn’t a court transcript. It was a coach sitting across from a governor and giving something closer to a full accounting.
He’s talking less about what other people did and more about what he did.
And what it cost.
More Sports Coverage:
Louisville Kings add former Louisville, CFL star pass rusher Lorenzo Mauldin IV to roster
Why the NCAA cleared Louisville G League signee London Johnson but not Alabama's Bediako
CRAWFORD | Behind Mikel Brown Jr.'s 45-point night — a smile that spoke volumes
CRAWFORD | Historic night: Brown's 45 ties Unseld's scoring record in 118-77 win over NC State
CRAWFORD | For Louisville, a rejuvenated Rooths — hamburgers and all — changes everything
Copyright 2026 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
