Xavier had to act fast, and they did.
As I type this it is Wednesday. A week ago today, Xavier staged an incredible comeback in front of a rabid crowd to knock Texas out of the tournament and advance to the first round. Everyone was All In, life was so very good. What an absolutely wild week it has been since then.
In that intervening time, Xavier has been eliminated from the tournament, lost their head coach to the team they beat in the play-in game, lost their star forward, and then not hired the guy everyone thought they would. That could be crushing for a program, except Xavier may have well spun that into gold.
Richard Pitino was the biggest name left on the coaching market, and he is Xavier’s new head coach. For about 30 minutes Twitter was ablaze with the news that Chris Mack would not be coming back to X. In that 30 minutes I sincerely hope Greg Christopher did not check any social media sites for the sake of his own mental health.
When that span of time ended though, Xavier had Pitino. There is no question that Richard Pitino can coach. In 2017 he was the Big Ten Coach of the Year. In his time at Minnesota he took that basketball poor school to the tournament twice, won a game in 2019, and won an NIT championship. In fact, in the ten tournament appearances that the NCAA recognizes for Minnesota since its inception in 1896, Pitino has a fifth of them and would have had another if not for Covid.
Minnesota moved on and collapsed right back into obscure mediocrity. New Mexico snapped up Pitino. In his first year the Lobos were 161st in the KenPom, they’ve not dipped below 66th since. Each of the last two seasons Pitino has led New Mexico out of the Mountain West and into the tournament. This season they fought Michigan St down to the wire and missed a Sweet 16 berth by eight points.
Pitino’s teams tend to play fast. Actually, that’s an understatement. New Mexico was the seventh fastest team in the nation this year. Their possessions were a second and a half shorter than Xavier’s and only six teams in the nation got more possessions out of a game than the Lobos. That’s a trend with Pitino, as is a very good defense. The Lobos were 23rd and 19th in defensive efficiency the last two years, thanks to a ball hawking group that forced turnovers and blocked shots.
Blocked shots are a staple of Pitino teams, but he’s shown flexibility elsewhere. He’s had a team that was fifth in the nation in forcing turnovers and one that was 330th. Sometimes his teams stifle the perimeter, sometimes they don’t. Almost never are his teams easy to make shots against, though they do usually surrender a high assist rate. All of this speaks to a defense that will not sit behind a packline. Another way Pitino prefers a more aggressive approach is his tendency not to bench players with two fouls in the first half.
Opinion can be divided on whether Richard Pitino is right for Xavier, but there’s no question that he was the big name remaining on the coaching board when Xavier went looking. He’s young, only 42, definitely on the rise, and comes with great pedigree. He’s made no attempts to hide that he was looking for a move to a high-major, and he got it. Greg Christopher said there was “tremendous interest” in the Xavier job. In Richard Pitino he chose a guy who seems more than capable of keeping Xavier among the elite.