PITINO FIRED; DUTCHER SAID TO BE A LEADING CANDIDATE
The worst-kept secret in college basketball became official Monday night: Richard Pitino is no longer Minnesota’s head coach.
The university announced it has “parted ways” with the 38year-old son of Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino after eight largely disappointing seasons. Speculation immediately turned to his potential replacement, which meant San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher was mentioned prominently.
The connections are obvious. Dutcher’s father, Jim, coached the Golden Gophers from 1975 to 1985, winning their last Big Ten title that wasn’t later vacated. Dutcher, his sisters and his wife are alums. Most of their families still live in the Twin Cities. They vacation there each summer.
There’s also this: Dutcher included a clause in the six-year contract he signed last year that allows the buyout to drop from $6.9 million to $1 million only for Minnesota.
Dutcher and SDSU Athletic Director John David Wicker have declined comment about the potential opening, although it is known that Wicker had several conversations with Dutcher before the team left for the Mountain West Tournament in Las Vegas. The Aztecs are 53-6 under Dutcher the past two seasons and are a 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis, where they face Syracuse on Friday.
Dutcher made $930,000 this season before bonuses. The contract jumps to $1.18 million next season, then continues climbing each year until topping out at $1.53 million in 2025-26.
Pitino made $2.46 million at Minnesota, in the bottom third of Big Ten coaches. His contract included a $1.75 million buyout before April 30, although it is unclear if the two sides negotiated a smaller fee.
If Dutcher stays at SDSU, he could be seeing Pitino on a regular basis. Pitino and former Colorado State coach Tim Miles reportedly are finalists for New Mexico’s opening.
Other candidates most often mentioned include fellow Mountain West coaches Niko Medved from Colorado State and Craig Smith from Utah State; Ryan Saunders, the former Minnesota Timberwolves coach whose father played at Minnesota; Loyola Chicago coach Porter Moser; and
Cleveland State coach Dennis Gates.
Indiana fires Miller Archie Miller’s
$10.3 million buyout was one of college basketball’s priciest.
Indiana Athletic Director Scott Dolson decided keeping Miller would prove even more costly to the storied program.
Dolson fired Miller, armed with enough cash from private donations to cover the buyout and ready to answer a fan base angered by four straight mediocre seasons.
The Hoosiers haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2016, haven’t been to the Elite Eight since 2002 and haven’t won a national championship since 1987 — the longest drought between titles in school history. Indiana has won just three Big Ten titles since 1993 and it’s now had five consecutive non-winning seasons in Big Ten play for the first time since 1911-19.
Miller was 67-58 with the Hoosiersand never beat rival Purdue in seven tries.
More coaching news
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery signed a four-year contract extension through 2027-28 after leading the eighth-ranked Hawkeyes to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals and their highest NCAA Tournament seeding since 1987.
• DePaul fired coach Dave Leitao six years into his second tenure in another effort to lift a once-proud program. The Blue Demons went 5-14 overall in a season that started about a month late because of COVID-19 issues. They finished last in the Big East for the fifth straight year at 2-13.
• Boston College hired Earl Grant as its coach, bringing in the man who led the College of Charleston to the NCAA Tournament.
Notable
Gonzaga (26-0) received all 60 first-place votes to stay atop the AP final men’s basketball poll, becoming the first team since Kentucky in 2014-15 to be No. 1 in every poll and the 14th overall. Gonzaga, named the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, will try to become the first unbeaten national champion since Indiana in 1976.
AUCKLAND, New Zealand
Helmsmen Peter Burling and James Spithill have done their best to explain the inexplicable; the bizarre eighth race of the 36th America’s Cup Match in which Team New Zealand came from more than four minutes behind to beat Italy’s Luna Rossa and take a two-win lead in the series.
Team Zealand made it 6-3 late Monday night (San Diego time) with a 30-second victory to move within one win of the Cup. Race 10 was called off.
Team New Zealand demonstrated a clear boat speed advantage Monday to achieve the first pass of the Match in the seventh race, overtaking after losing the start to win by 58 seconds.
But the lasting talking point of the series will be the eighth race when Team New Zealand went from four minutes behind to more than four minutes in front.
A light and shifting breeze turned the eighth race into something unprecedented in the Cup’s 170year history. First Team New Zealand dropped off its foils after gybing in Luna Rossa’s wind shadow and the Italian team sailed away to a massive advantage.
Then Luna Rossa sailed into a wind hole at the top of the course, came to a halt and Team New Zealand, foiling again, sailed past it and went on to win by 3 minutes, 55 seconds.
The day was a major blow to Italy’s chances of winning the America’s Cup for the first time. After first experiencing Team New Zealand’s speed advantage in a moderate breeze, it lost its chance to keep the series level in a frail breeze and on a race course full of wind holes.
Luna Rossa’s Australianborn helmsman Jimmy Spithill said the Italian team was not demoralized.
“I don’t view today as a lost opportunity. The way I view it, you’re either winning or you’re learning,” Spithill said. “So I think we learned a lot today and that’s going to help us a lot as a team and it’s going to help us win races.
“I can tell you right now, there’s no one at the base curled up in the corner crying it out. No one’s going to throw the towel in.
“We have to tip our hats to New Zealand for sailing two good races. But for us it’s not over. We’re not at the trophy presentation yet.”
Peter Burling said Team New Zealand had given Luna Rossa a good chance to level the series in the eighth race but rallied “on a pretty tense day for us.”
“We really needed a mistake from the Luna Rossa guys,” Burling said. “We didn’t really think it was going to happen but our luck was good. I think it was a pretty amazing effort by the whole team, especially the grinding group, to get the boat back on the foils even four minutes behind and keep charging forward.”
Cross country Grossmont
In the Foothillers’ final race of the season, the senior set a school course record when she covered the 2.35-mile Harry Griffin Park course in 13 minutes, 58 seconds, breaking her own mark of 14:01 set a year ago.