Rick Pitino Offered Head Coaching Job by New Zealand Breakers

Former Louisville head men's basketball coach Rick Pitino has reportedly been offered the head coaching position of the New Zealand Breakers of the National Basketball League in Australia.

On Friday, Marc Stein of the New York Times reported the Breakers' American ownership group has been "pitching" the idea to Pitino's agent this week.

No NBA teams have reached out to the longtime coach, though his representatives did make contact with the Milwaukee Bucks, per Stein.

The 65-year-old Basketball Hall of Fame inductee was fired by the Cardinals in October for his alleged role in the widespread college basketball "pay to play" scandal.

Shortly after he was ousted by Louisville, Pitino told ESPN's Jay Bilas he was "flabbergasted" by the allegations and took a lie detector test in an effort to prove his innocence:

"I was asked two questions. And I said, 'I want you to ask me if any other recruits in my tenure were ever given anything.' And he [the polygraph examiner] said, 'That's not what we're here for. We're here for: Did you have any knowledge of the [Brian] Bowen family getting any money? Did you have any knowledge of an Adidas transaction?'

"I answered 'absolutely not' on both questions and passed the lie detector test. So I had no knowledge of any of this."

Pitino, a guard during his playing days at UMass, has also served as head coach at Boston University, Providence and Kentucky at the collegiate level as well as the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics in the NBA.

The Breakers were purchased in February by Breakers Basketball Ltd., a company created by former NBA player Matt Walsh along with business partners that include four-time NBA All-Star Shawn Marion and Romie Chaudhari, who owns a portion of English Premier League club Swansea City.

New Zealand has captured four NBL titles since 2011, most recently winning the championship in 2015. It finished the 2017-18 regular season with a 15-13 record before getting eliminated in the playoff semifinals by Melbourne United.