Richard Pitino is the new head basketball coach at Xavier, joining his legendary father in the Big East coaching ranks.
He heads to Xavier from New Mexico, where he led the Lobos to the past two NCAA Tournaments. He replaces Sean Miller, who was announced as the head coach at Texas on Monday.
Pitino has a career record of 247-186 in his 13 seasons as head coach at Florida International (2012-13), Minnesota (2013-21) and New Mexico (2021-25).
“We are excited to welcome Richard Pitino as our new men’s basketball head coach,” Xavier athletic director Greg Christopher said late Tuesday. “He has proven himself as a winner as a head coach at New Mexico and has an impressive resume of success before that as a head coach at Minnesota. His success as an assistant stood out, especially his time working for his father, Rick Pitino, at Louisville and Billy Donovan at Florida. We had tremendous interest in our head coaching position. It became clear that Richard was the right fit for Xavier to take us to championship success in the Big East and NCAA Tournament.”
Pitino, 42, said he welcomes the challenge.
“Xavier is one of the great brands in all of college basketball,” he said. “It has always been a dream of mine to coach in the Big East.”
As such, he will coach against his father, Rick Pitino, who is the head coach at conference rival St. John’s.
Richard Pitino guided the Lobos to a 27-8 record and a regular-season Mountain West championship this past season. In the first round of the NCAA Tournament, 10th-seeded New Mexico upset Big East member Marquette 75-66 before losing 71-63 to No. 2 seed Michigan State in the second round of play in the South Region on Sunday.
He also led Minnesota to two NCAA Tournament appearances.
Xavier finished the season with a 22-12 record after an 86-73 loss to No. 6 seed Illinois in the NCAA Tournament first round last Friday.
–Field Level Media
