Taking his ball and going home: Cowardice, thy name is Rick Pitino

Running away, the old line goes, may temporarily relieve the pressure, but it won’t solve the problem. And that’s Rick Pitino, the man who is running away, as if trying to vaccinate himself against expectations.

He’s running away from UConn, all the way from Manhattan to Queens, running away from the opportunity to play the Huskies on Broadway, instead taking his ball and going to what amounts to Peoria by comparison.

Sad.

Pitino, called upon to revive men’s basketball at St. John’s, told the assembled media recently that next season his program will play UConn at on-campus Carnesecca Arena, not Madison Square Garden.

“It’s definitely not a joke,” Pitino said. “I have my reasons.”

Of course he does. It begins with a perceived competitive advantage, tethered to the idea that not as many UConn fans can squeeze into a 5,602-seat on-campus gym as would typically pile into the Garden. Pitino is very likely trying to nudge his own fan base, too, particularly when the Johnnies’ regular-season home game with UConn this season will be at the Garden next month.

“We didn’t sell out against Xavier (at Carnesecca). We didn’t have anybody come to Barclays (Center for a game Dec. 10),” Pitino said. “We don’t have an abundance of fans. We’re not UConn or Villanova with fans, and there’s a reason. We lost the brand.

Louie (Carnesecca) has been gone a long time. So we’ve got to build the brand back, and the people will come back.”

And he thinks “rebuilding the brand” will happen faster by forgoing the opportunity to play what may be the two-time defending national champions in the World’s Most Famous Arena?

Pitino has been called many things in his career. But never cowardly. Until now. Put it this way: If you want to be The Man, then you need to act like it.

The Garden has always been a haven for visiting teams. It doesn’t make New York fans any less passionate. But it’s the World’s Most Famous Arena because it’s a destination. Plenty of people root against the Knicks every night, too. I was at a Rangers game a few weeks ago watching an inordinate number of fans root for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

This is a coach with more than 800 wins and two national titles. And yet he’s afraid of some potential embarrassment one night just because the UConn fans might outnumber his own? It’s called wisdom for the pain. And what might happen if the Johnnies pull the upset — as they almost

did two weeks ago in Hartford?

Yet instead of teaching his players to want the ball, he's telling them to take it and go home. It's bad enough the transfer portal does enough to encourage kids to abdicate responsibility. Now instead of “the only way out is through,” Pitino just opened the side door. This is Gotham, coach. And with that comes the responsibility to stare down your opponents, not avoid eye contact.

Happily for UConn, coach Dan Hurley handled the situation perfectly and professionally. The way a national championship coach ought to sound.

"I'm not thinking about next year's schedule. I'm obsessed with my next opponent. I'm obsessed with my next practice. I'm obsessed with DePaul and beating them. The last thing I'm thinking about is where I'm playing somebody next year,” Hurley said before Tuesday's game.

"When you've been ranked in the top five, or whatever we've been the whole year, you're the defending national champs and you've had all the success that we've had at UConn, everyone is gunning for us. Everyone is trying to get what we have. We've won four national championships since 2000 (five since 1999) here at UConn. They haven't had much success since then. ... They're trying to do what they need to do to build their program up."

Many of you reading this may dismiss this as much ado about nothing. A wise old coach seeking a competitive advantage or calling his fan base into action. And that's fine. Free country.

But the next time a pundit starts giving Pitino the Messiah treatment, just remember what Honest Abe once said: “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

New York didn't get to be the big, bad city through cowardice. Want to bring St. John's back? Go face the champs on Broadway.

Such small-time behavior for a man with the reputation of a big-time coach.