“Nobody's going to feel sorry for me”: Rick Pitino’s son Richard reflects on getting fired by Minnesota before New Mexico job 

New Xavier Musketeers coach Richard Pitino is in his first offseason with his new squad. The son of legendary college basketball tactician Rick Pitino joined the Musketeers after four years with the New Mexico Lobos.

Before his stint with New Mexico, he coached the Minnesota Golden Gophers from 2013 to 2021. He was fired by Minnesota in 2021 after the Golden Gophers went 14-15.

During an interview with Matt McCall of the "Field of 68: After Dark" podcast on YouTube Monday, Pitino reflected on how he felt after getting fired.

"I think the first thing that I learned was not in a very just, bad way of looking at life, but nobody really cares," Pitino said. "Everybody worries about their own problems. So, my immediate reaction was nobody's going to feel sorry for me, whether it's my friends, whether it's peers, whatever, like they don't want to hear me complain.

"So, I've never ever been bitter. I've never ever been the, 'Oh I got screwed or whatever,' like I just moved on. Was it hard to leave Minnesota and my good friends? Yeah, there were a lot of nights where I felt as though I let my family down because we had a really good life in Minnesota."

(from 3:20 mark onwards)

Pitino now heads into a Musketeers program that concluded the 2024-25 season with a 22-12 record (13-7 Big East). They were bounced out of March Madness in the first round.

Richard Pitino felt it was important to get everybody in same direction after Minnesota stint

Later in the interview, Richard Pitino talked about what he was trying to apply during his New Mexico Lobos stint that he had learned from his time at the helm of the Minnesota Golden Gophers coaching staff. For him, it was all about getting everybody on the same page.

"When I got the New Mexico job, what I saw was I was able to bring people with me, whether it was administration boosters, staff and then obviously, the players, to where to get them to understand what the vision was," he said. "I don't think I did a good job of that in my eight years in Minnesota."

Pitino finished his last campaign at New Mexico with an overall record of 27-8 (17-3 Mountain West), and made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament.