Rick Pitino, the hall of fame reigning NCAA men’s basketball champion Louisville coach, is 61. Son Richard, first-year Minnesota men’s basketball coach, is 31. There’s already some wonderment among Gophers rooters whether the son some day could succeed the father at Louisville.

“I think that’s normal thinking,” Rick Pitino said this week, “because Richard spent a lot of time here.”

But, the elder Pitino added, he would advise that his son remain in Minnesota.

Richard, who has a six-year contract worth $1.2 million annually, was associate head coach at Louisville two seasons ago.

“He knows my athletic director very well,” his dad said. “But he’s his own man and wants to blaze his own trail, and he is thoroughly enthralled with Minnesota. He loves the people. He loves the university. He thinks it’s a very special place with special people.

“To me, it’s a perfect place to raise my grandchildren. It’s a perfect place for him to become something special like Bo Ryan has become at Wisconsin. That was my advice to him — become a Billy Donovan at Florida, a Bo Ryan at Wisconsin, a Tom Izzo at Michigan State. Build something very special at Minnesota and build longevity.

“My feeling, personally, is why, good or bad, follow your dad? Why leave a place that can be something special?”

Louisville has been special to Rick Pitino, whose contract runs through the 2021-22 season. In April, he’ll receive a $600,000 retention bonus for remaining coach of the Cardinals, a bonus he’ll continue to get every two years that he stays. That’s on top of an annual deal reportedly worth $7.5 million.

For a second time this season, Rick Pitino watched Richard coach at Williams Arena, most recently on Saturday when the Gophers defeated Indiana and another high-powered coach, Tom Crean.

“This time was a league game, so it was much more impressive,” Rick said of the 66-60 victory. “(Williams Arena) is one of the unique places in college basketball, like Kansas and Phog Allen Arena. I think the Barn is one of five or six places that sticks out in terms of college atmosphere. I think it’s a wonderful place.”

Compared to KFC Yum! Center, where Louisville plays?

“Our place is more of a professional environment,” Pitino said. “We have 22,100 seats, 93 luxury boxes. We’re the No. 1 revenue producer in college basketball for 11 years. I think we make like a half-million dollars a game. So we’re more of a professional arena. They (Gophers) have more of a college arena.”

Although Richard Pitino hasn’t barked about getting a practice facility the way his predecessor, Tubby Smith, did, Rick Pitino agrees with Smith.

“Now, they’ve got to get a practice facility,” Rick said. “(Richard) loves his athletic director (Norwood Teague) — he thinks his AD is as good as there is in the business. He (Richard) understands they’ve got to catch up from a facilities standpoint. Once they break ground there, he doesn’t think there’s anything holding him back from having a top 20 program each year.”

Rick, who watched Saturday evening’s victory a few rows behind the Gophers’ bench, is impressed with his son’s first-year coaching at Minnesota.

“I think he’s doing a great job,” said Rick, whose career college record is 681-239. “I wish he had a little bit more frontcourt help in terms of power forwards. I think he’s playing two small forwards at power forwards, and that’s what happens when you rebuild — you’re void of certain positions.

“I told him my first year at Providence, I lost six games at the buzzer. The following year, I won seven games within two seconds. So you build a culture. The first year is always the most difficult, then you start recruiting.

“Now, he loves the guys Tubby left behind. Generally, that’s not the case when you take over a program. There’s laziness, there’s guys unmotivated. That’s not the case (at Minnesota). He was left with really good kids that he really thinks a lot of. They have a very strong work ethic. They have a strong desire to win and represent the school in the right way. So he is very, very excited about that.”

Although Rick sees some of himself in Richard, he also sees differences.

“Just mannerisms. He has the same mannerisms as me, and the way we prepare for games, we’re almost a twin,” Rick said. “His hand gestures and mannerisms are a lot like mine, which would be normal because he spent so much time with me.

“But we totally coach differently. He’s a lot different in many respects than I am.”

Although Rick and Richard compete against each other in recruiting, they also advise each other on recruits.

“We do that constantly for each other,” Rick said. “It’s something we talk about. We have to recruit the same level of person. The only thing that we (Louisville) are different than Minnesota is that we can go to California and have a chance at a player, where Minnesota would have a difficult time in California.”

Why?

“I would think more climate,” Rick said. “California kids are not going to go to a different type of climate, that’s your type of climate, I should say, unless the coach knows you. West Coast kids are a little different. Now, outside of West Coast kids, we’re basically going to go after the same kids.

“We have gone head-to-head with certain kids. There’s a young man they’re recruiting right now from overseas (slender 7-foot-1 native Egyptian Anas Osama Mahmoud of West Oaks Academy in Orlando, Fla.) that we really loved, but we already had a guy at that position, and we turned him on to Richard, and their assistant went out to see him, and they’re recruiting him right now quite actively.”

Mahmoud is to visit the Gophers next weekend.

“So any time we have a position, we see somebody, and visa versa, he’ll say to me, ‘Look, you need to get on this kid, and we do it,’ ” Rick said.

DON’T PRINT THAT

Getting back to Rick Pitino’s future at Louisville, it’s assumed he’ll be there for a while.

“I don’t know that at my age … I wrote this book, ‘One Day Contract,’ and I truly subscribe to it,” Rick said. “But if anybody asked me for my recommendation, I’d recommend that Richard stay a Minnesota — blaze your own trail.”

Rick’s group at Saturday’s game included 12 people from Louisville and six from New York.

“We’re just a very close family, and we do anything to support each other,” Rick said.

Richard was in Louisville the other day to see his dad coach against Cincinnati, which upset Louisville.

Included in Saturday’s Pitino party was Rick’s youngest son, Ryan, 23, who’s in the finance business on Wall Street and watched part of the game dressed in a chicken suit.

“(Gophers recruiting/operations coordinator) Walker Price said, ‘Ryan, if you truly want to be a member of the Barn, why don’t you dress up (in a costume)?’ and Ryan said back to him, ‘Get me something, and I’ll wear it,’ ” Rick said. “We’re all just big supporters of each other. He would do anything for Richard.”

So will Richard’s dad. The pair will face each other next Nov. 14 when Louisville plays Minnesota in the Armed Forces Classic on ESPN in a U.S. Coast Guard’s military hangar in Puerto Rico.

“I said to Richard, two things: Look, if this helps you, we’ll do it; if it hurts you in any way…,’ he said no,” Rick said. “I think it’s great for recruiting. So I said, ‘Then we’ll do it.’

“Were losing everybody, so he realizes he’ll be a 20-point favorite over us. That’s why he did it.”

OVERHEARD

Rick Pitino, asked if there’s any chance that Louisville will come to Williams Arena: “I don’t think so, only because we’re joining the ACC. We have to play Kentucky, we’re playing Memphis, and it’s very difficult to get another game on your schedule because of all the rivals that we have to play now as it is.”