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Rick Pitino to Retire in 2013?

On Rick Pitino's radio show tonight, in a discussion of the opening game opponent for the Cardinal's new downtown arena scheduled to open in the fall, Pitino gave out a possible retirement, one a little bit further out than many Cards' fans had been anticipating.  Pitino said that Louisville is in discussions with Duke to be the opening opponent for the debut of the new Cardinal Arena (the naming rights are still available if you have a spare $10-20 million a year to memorialize yourself).   The discussions are for a three year contract with Duke to play in Louisville in 2010, the game to be in Madison Square Garden in the 2011-2012 season with the final game in the series in Cameron Indoor during the 2012-2013 season.  Pitino said that he thought he would retire then, "the year we go to Cameron."

Louisville hasn't met Duke in basketball since beating the Jay Bilas led Blue Devils in the 1986 national championship game.  What is a bit striking about this discussion is Pitino claimed that Duke initiated the discussion.  This after Louisville was forced to sue Duke in an attempt to gain compliance with a football series contract, which resulted in the laughable judicial conclusion that at the time, there was no football team in the country worse than Duke, so any replacement game obtained by Louisville was sufficient, even if it was a Division I-AA opponent.  Relations between the schools had not been too good since.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on January 15, 2010 (boomark / email).