Matt Bevin calls Rick Pitino an 'angry, bitter person' who blames others

Gov. Matt Bevin said Wednesday that it is sad to watch former University of Louisville men's basketball coach Rick Pitino blame others for his professional woes.

Kentucky's Republican governor is one of the subjects in Pitino's new memoir, which was released this week. In it Pitino refers to Bevin as a "religious zealot" who was upset with athletic director Tom Jurich over the KFC Yum Center's revised lease agreement.

"It's pretty sad, it really is," Bevin said on 840 WHAS radio in his first public comments on the book. "He was a great coach and his life is devolving into this. It's sad."

Pitino, who also says Bevin has a "puritanical streak," relies heavily on secondhand conversations in his accounts of the governor's actions. He said in the book that in early 2016 an unnamed personal friend and former Louisville athlete with a "strong connection to Bevin's inner circle" told him about a conversation with one of the governor's mutual friends.

Read more: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/05/matt-bevin-says-rick-pitino-angry-bitter-person/1200136002/