Rick Pitino's stance has been as consistent as a statue's. He campaigned for stylistic change in college basketball before his University of Louisville Cardinals cut down the nets last April in Atlanta, and his views have not been budged by ultimate victory.

Pitino prefers freedom of movement to best of three falls, and the Hall of Fame coach is confident his defending NCAA champions have the ability and the depth to adapt to re-emphasized rules designed to make basketball more like ballet and less like boxing.

"Two years ago it would really have affected us in a negative way," Pitino said during Wednesday's American Athletic Conference media day talkathon. "We were banged up. We weren't deep at all. (But) last year's team could have played with any style because they were deep. This year's team is very deep."

In a preseason poll that was all but preordained, nine of the 10 AAC coaches picked UofL to win the new league's first championship. The only dissenter was Pitino, who was precluded from voting for his own team, and the most legitimate doubt involved the Cards' ability to conform to quicker whistles without losing their trademark aggressiveness.

When a team is built on unrelenting defensive pressure — and only VCU forced turnovers at a higher rate than UofL last season — anything that constricts chaos can be seen as a setback. Since officials are now expected to call fouls for hand-checks, forearm "bars" and other coercive contact, the Cards figure to be among the most disadvantaged teams in America.

"Louisville isn't going to have a team if we stick to this because they're going to all foul out in the first half," Colorado State coach Larry Eustachy told ESPN. "And I love the way they play. If you're going to call touch fouls, it'll be over in the first 10 minutes. Pitino will have to play. It really is crazy."

So why isn't Pitino panicking? Why would a coach whose team thrived under the old rules embrace change so readily? The short answer is that Rick Pitino did not reach the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame because he was inflexible.

When the NCAA adopted the 3-point shot in 1986, he was among its earliest and most successful adapters, leading improbable Providence to a Final Four. If the college game is to be called more tightly this season, Pitino has developed enough backcourt depth to deal with it.

"A lot of the stuff that people got away with off the ball and on the ball will be negated," said UofL guard Russ Smith, the AAC's preseason Player of the Year. "For me, it will penalize people more for thinking they can just push me around, and I kind of love the idea of that. I'm a pretty decent free-throw shooter (.804 last season). ... I think I'll be very successful."

Smith's challenge will be to temper his tenacity on the defensive end, to resist the high-risk reach and the lingering hand on an opponent's hip. Though Pitino says he might be more willing to keep a player on the floor with two first-half fouls, his team has been built for seamless backcourt substitution.

Should Smith or Chris Jones develop foul trouble, Anton Gill and Terry Rozier present appealing alternatives. (Plus, at some point, there's Kevin Ware.)

"As time goes on there will be less fouling, more freedom of movement, more exciting plays," Pitino predicted. "You're going to see more zone (defenses). Unfortunately, you're going to see your stars sit on the bench a little bit more in the first half."

UofL forward Luke Hancock expects tighter officiating to translate into more explosive play.

"Keeping a guy like Russ Smith or Chris Jones out of the paint, if you can't 'arm bar,' you can't touch him, it makes it basically impossible," Hancock said. "My only advantage on Russ is I outweigh him by about 40 pounds. If I can't hold him and try to keep him in one spot, you can't guard a guy like that."

The rules giveth, the rules taketh away. Rick Pitino has enough players to adjust.


Louisville guard Luke Hancock fulfilled an assignment for class with a report on Rick Pitino's new book: "The One-Day Contract."

Read or Share this story: