Pitino’s Move Forces UNLV to Scrap Plans

Plans to introduce Rick Pitino as the new Nevada Las Vegas men’s basketball coach this week were scrapped after Pitino surprisingly pulled his name from consideration late Sunday night.

A former booster who was close to the “unofficial” negotiations said UNLV President Carol Harter and Athletic Director Charles Cavagnaro bungled the deal.

“We had the wrong people negotiating for us and representing us in this situation,” said the booster, who wished to remain anonymous. “[Pitino] was happy with the offer but we just had the wrong people dealing with the Pitinos. We needed people that could represent the [Las Vegas] community in a very positive way.”

Pitino’s name had surfaced long before Bill Bayno was fired as coach in December and Pitino quit as coach of the Boston Celtics in January. At last year’s UNLV team banquet, Harter said that Pitino couldn’t carry then-Rebel coach Bayno’s jock.

“[Harter and Cavagnaro] said to leave it to them,” the booster said. “We left it to them and this is what we got--nothing.”

On the table was a reported five-year deal worth $1.6 million annually.

“I got the sense that [Pitino] was just not that impressed with those people,” said another former booster who has dealt with Pitino several times in the past. “This is one game UNLV had to win, and they blew it.”

Cavagnaro refused comment. Rather, he had the school’s sports information director, Andy Grossman, refute reports that Pitino was to have been introduced Wednesday as the Rebel coach.

The timing would have made a huge splash as such an announcement would have come just before UNLV hosts the Mountain West Conference tournament, an affair the Rebels aren’t competing in because of NCAA sanctions.

“I mean, [Pitino] never got an official offer,” Grossman said. “There wasn’t [a news conference] planned but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have thrown one together.”

Pitino’s feelings on his interest in taking over at UNLV seemed to change weekly.

First he took a back-handed shot at former Rebel coach Jerry Tarkanian by saying UNLV was a sleeping giant that could be brought back to national prominence, “only this time with integrity.”

Then Pitino said he was afraid of the four years of NCAA sanctions that came in the wake of UNLV’s recruitment of Lamar Odom in 1996-97.

He followed that up on ESPN’s “Up Close” by saying that his lone concern was if Las Vegas was an appropriate setting in which to raise his two youngest children.

The penalties, which include the loss of two scholarships for the next two seasons, came up again last week.

Finally, Pitino said that while UNLV needed to recruit from the junior college ranks to rebuild quicker, that type of recruiting did not play to his strengths and that his recruiting contacts mainly were in the East. He also expressed concern about the team being booted out of their on-campus Thomas & Mack Center home by the National Finals Rodeo in December as well as the specter of Bayno hitting the school with a $1.8-million lawsuit for wrongful termination.

Last week, Las Vegas media outlets reported that Pitino to UNLV was a done deal. Two days after Denny Crum was forced out at Louisville, Pitino withdrew from the running at UNLV, leading to reports that he was on the verge of accepting a $2-million-a-year offer to coach the Cardinals.

UNLV’s wooing of Pitino, which began as soon as he resigned from the Celtics on Jan. 8 and lasted throughout last week’s tour of the Las Vegas valley by Pitino’s wife Joanne, miffed interim Rebel Coach Max Good.

Good took over when Bayno was removed on Dec. 12 because of the NCAA sanctions.

“Obviously, this is just comical,” Good said of the latest episode. “But this is UNLV, the tents go up and the tents go down. We just need some jugglers and cyclists and I feel like I’m the court jester.”

Early in the courtship, Pitino called Good to gauge his interest in staying on as an assistant on a potential Pitino staff.

Good met with Cavagnaro on Monday morning to express his interest in staying on full time, mostly to protect the job security of his assistants and the playing future of returning players and recruits.

Good was cryptic in describing the talk.

“I think I’ll be coaching next year . . . somewhere,” he said.

Among the names that have surfaced since Pitino’s withdrawal include Rick Majerus, Larry Brown and Bob Huggins.

Phoenix Sun guard Tony Delk, who played for Pitino’s national championship team at Kentucky, said recently that he believed his former coach would not take the UNLV job, mostly because of the rebuilding that needed to be done.

But didn’t Pitino rebuild Kentucky when he arrived in Lexington in 1989?

“Yeah, but he was steady getting players, you know?” Delk said. “It takes about four or five years and I don’t know if he’s going to wait that long to go and pretty much start all over again.

“He [did that] with Boston the past couple of years and it’s stressful, not knowing what you’re going to get and not knowing how your team’s going to perform the whole year.”