After getting home from coaching the Louisville Cardinals to an opening-round upset loss to Morehead State last Thursday, he heard CBS wanted him as a guest weekend analyst and had "15 minutes to decide what to do and pack my bags." But with the season having "ended so abruptly, and you have nothing to do, I wasn't ready to put basketball aside."

And Thursday and Friday he moves on to ESPN studio shows where "I'm sure I'll be asked to defend the Big East. Which I won't do."

Well, not defend its tournament performance. But he defends the conference getting a record 11 tournament teams, saying it "without question deserved all 11, with the only one you could discuss being Marquette — and Marquette has more than proven themselves."

Not, he says, that he's terribly surprised that Marquette and Connecticut are the only Big East teams still left in the NCAA. Only one Big East loss "shocked the heck out of me" — Notre Dame losing to Florida State — because "outstanding teams can go down."

Like Louisville, who Dick Vitale had in the Final Four because "the magic of Rick Pitino is going to shock people."

Presumably, such magic could translate into a plum TV job. Pitino, 58, the only coach to lead three schools to the NCAA Final Four, says he would enjoy being a TV analyst on either games or on studio shows and does "want to stay in the game in some capacity" after coaching.

And while he will take his two-week annual offseason trip to Miami to ask himself if he still enjoys coaching, he says a move to TV this year is "highly unlikely. … I see myself coaching next year. … This was the most enjoyable year in 20 years — it rivals (his) 1987 Providence team. I loved coaching this team."

On the CBS/Turner studio show, he found Charles Barkley to be "even funnier off-camera than on." But he doesn't think Barkley and Kenny Smith, normally TNT NBA analysts, "are necessarily up to speed on college. The refreshing thing is they have a whole different perspective. They focus on talent and NBA prospects. … I tried to explain you can take great players out of the game in game in college. It's different."

At ESPN, Pitino thinks analyst Jay Bilas "is one of the best I've seen come along in years, in terms of being glib and having an outstanding mind for the game. He really knows what he's talking about." And ESPN's Doug Gottlieb, he says, "has great insight, but just has to lighten up and not take himself quite so seriously."

Asked Tuesday about Pitino's TV prospects, Ex-CBS analyst Billy Packer says he'd "pay to watch Pitino break down a game technically. No one knows it better. If you were going to do a show each week on practices, Rick Pitino runs the best practice of any coach in the U.S., a great teacher and clinician. But that doesn't mean he'd be good on TV. Al McGuire didn't even want to be at practices, but was great on TV. Some guys are stars."

And in a TV studio, says Packer, "Pitino could never be a star. Some guys are stars. I was never a star. Charles Barkley might have 1,000th the basketball knowledge of Rick Pitino, but he's a star."

Still, Pitino can obviously offer up opinions. On NCAA tournament officiating, he says this is "the best I've seen of officials doing their job correctly in heated situations." On any coaches who find themselves with suddenly red-hot job prospects after the tournament, he says "I'd tell any coach not to move for money. ... Stay at your job if you're really happy." And on what will happen next in the tournament, he says there are two "great teams" left — Kansas and Ohio State — but also 14 "very good" ones that might win on any given day.

Sounds like an analyst you'll someday be hearing more from between commercial breaks.