Louisville guard Russ Smith (2) lays in a shot over Wichita State forward Carl Hall (22) in their semi-final matchup in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta onSaturday. Louisville plays Michigan in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship game tonight.
Michigan’s Glenn Robinson III (1) shoots as Syracuse’s James Southerland defends during the first half of their NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball semifinal game Saturday in Atlanta. Louisville plays Michigan in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship game tonight.ATLANTA – Given the week Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino is enjoying, the question had to be asked.
So after noting that Pitino officially will be named to the Basketball Hall of Fame today, that his 30-year-old son Richard was just named the head coach at Minnesota, that his Kentucky Derby-contending colt Goldencents won Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby, and that a victory tonight over Michigan in the NCAA championship game inside the Georgia Dome would make him the first coach to win a title at two different schools, a reporter posed the following question during Sunday’s media event:
“Coach, do you indeed have a deal with the devil?”
With a wry smile, Pitino said: “I can give you some years when I could name it the other way. So you take it in stride.”
Both Pitino’s Cardinals and John Beilein’s Wolverines have taken their remarkable seasons in stride well enough to tip it off at 9:20 tonight (CBS) before the largest crowd in NCAA championship game history — 75,350.