Pitino Will Not Coach Puerto Rico National Team

University of Louisville coach Rick Pitino officially withdrew from coaching the Puerto Rico National Team Wednesday due to scheduling conflicts.

Puerto Rico will try to qualify for the 2012 Olympics in the FIBA Americas Championship basketball tournament on Aug. 25- Sept. 8. That tournament would have kept Pitino away from campus when his players arrive on campus, a compromise he was unwilling to make.

“It is a great disappointment that we cannot take on the challenge to help them qualify for the Olympics,” Pitino said in a statement. “We were hoping to arrange for both the Puerto Rico and our U of L teams to play at the same foreign site, which could not be accommodated. An additional tournament in Brazil would have also kept me from being in Louisville at a key time for the start of the fall semester.”

Pitino originally planned on having the Cardinals play the national team in the summer. The NCAA allows one foreign trip every four years, but U of L was denied a waiver to play in Puerto Rico because it is a U.S. territory.

An attempt was made to have Puerto Rico train in the Bahamas, where U of L will now take their foreign trip, but those plans fell through too.