[h1]Pitino gives Caracter chance[/h1] [h2]Might return in '09-10 if he meets conditions[/h2]
Coach
Rick Pitino said yesterday that he has offered Derrick Caracter a chance to sit out next season but return to the University of Louisville basketball team for the 2009-10 season -- if the player meets requirements the coach questions whether he can fulfill
But Pitino said that Caracter called him yesterday morning and said he was willing to meet those conditions.
"He's going to have to get a job that I'm going to have to approve, he's going to have to pay his own way to school, he's going to have to get his own apartment," said Pitino, who was in Los Angeles. "We'd be willing to work him out, but he's not going to practice with our basketball team (next season) or be part of it. He's going to have to get in shape and get himself on the right track academically."
Pitino said several times in recent months that Caracter would not be back next season and should look elsewhere to resume his college career or should play pro ball. He also said Caracter was academically ineligible at U of L.
Pitino said that when he talked with Caracter yesterday and outlined the conditions for the player's return, "I told him I wanted him to really think about it and we'd talk about it again when I got back to town later this week. He says he's willing to do it, but I just don't understand his motivation when he's always been a guy who took the easy way out. All he's ever talked about is going to the pros."
Caracter, a 6-foot-9 forward from Fanwood, N.J., averaged 8.3 points and 4.5 rebounds as a sophomore last season. At the end of the season, Caracter announced he planned to forgo his final two seasons of eligibility to place his name in the 2008 NBA draft.
Pitino said he arranged an invitation for Caracter to the final
NBA predraft workout in Orlando, Fla., last month. But Caracter changed his mind, declined the invitation and asked that his name be removed from the draft.
Pitino said that for the past two months he has received numerous phone calls and text messages from Caracter asking to be reinstated. Pitino said he told Caracter he should transfer or explore a pro career in Europe.
"It just wasn't working for either one of us here," Pitino said. "He told me that he was ready to do anything I asked him to do, and I told him, 'This doesn't make any sense. What chance do you have of doing that when you wouldn't do what I asked you to do when you were on scholarship?'
"I just don't understand the motivation. All his life he's taken the easy way out. Why would he want to do this? He could go to Europe and make a couple hundred thousand dollars."
Pitino said Caracter called him three times in the past week. That is when the coach made the offer that he said is similar to the one he gave Scott Padgett at the University of Kentucky after the 1994-95 season.
Padgett was dismissed from the UK team after his freshman season. He worked a series of jobs and earned his way back onto the team. He played three more seasons and appeared in two Final Fours, starring for UK's 1998 NCAA title team. Padgett became a first-round draft choice of the Utah Jazz and played eight seasons in the NBA.
"I don't want to be a doubting Thomas, but this is both bizarre and very encouraging," Pitino said. "My only hope is that Derrick could turn out as well as Scott Padgett has turned out."
Caracter frequently was a distraction during his first two seasons at U of L. He was suspended multiple times for violating team rules and held out of games for his failure to meet a target weight.
In April, Pitino said that Caracter would not return and called him "a major thorn in my side."
When he announced in May that Caracter was academically ineligible, Pitino suggested that Caracter could take a year off and return to college basketball a year later. But Pitino said Caracter would have to do that at another school.
"He just has too many issues to overcome, academically and otherwise, to be a Louisville Cardinal," Pitino said in May. "The best thing for him would be to go to a different place."