Rick Pitino Flashes Back Into Role of Underdog When the team from 1987 gathered earlier this season to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Cinderella, Jodi DiRaimo made the trip back to Rhode Island and couldn't help but notice how joyous the occasion was for his old friend Rick Pitino. "He came to the bar to be with the guys for about three hours, and it was good to see him laugh so hard again," DiRaimo said of Pitino, whom he has watched deal with the triumphs and tribulations of the celebrity coach's life. And that got DiRaimo to thinking that the reunion at Providence College wasn't just about the good old days. Maybe the wild ride and unforeseen run to the "87 Final Four that unveiled the charismatic Pitino to a basketball nation intangibly represented the best days of all. DiRaimo, a former restaurateur, moved from New England to Lexington, Ky., when Pitino quit the Knicks to become the Kentucky coach in 1989, still lives there and makes the drive to Louisville whenever the University of Louisville Cardinals play at home. His son, Bobby, is Pitino's freshman manager. "It's nothing like it was in "87," DiRaimo said. Now it's all about the big time. Except for this one time - Saturday evening in New Orleans - when fate and a few salient facts will allow Pitino to relive his past, not just recall it. Against Kentucky, he can dust off his slingshot and try to topple John Calipari's Frankenstein factory of one-and-done flybys. Soon after learning he did not make the Hall of Fame, Pitino can deal Calipari, whom he does not like, a devastating blow by winning the national semifinal and the unofficial state title. And for this one seemingly prohibitive matchup, Pitino - with age lines hardening his famously boyish face as he pushes 60 and revels in grandfatherhood - can again be little Ricky. Who back in the day incorporated a whole lot of Rocky. "I truly believe that Rick relishes the role of being the underdog," said Stu Jackson, who was one of Pitino's Providence assistants and is now the N.B.A."s executive vice president for basketball operations. But I think there is also another component to that. Rick's greatest passion has been to be an innovator, to figure out a way to make teams that aren't the most talented greater than the sum of their parts. Still the loyalist after all these years, Jackson added: "So the fact that they had injuries early, that - and he's going to kill me for saying this - he's had to somewhat change the full-court pressure and that this is not, quite frankly, one of his best perimeter shooting teams, you can just see the satisfaction on his face." And, really, Pitino has nothing but a game to lose at the Final Four because most people who know the ball is round fully expect Kentucky to win. Isn't that why that first professional success is so much more fun, because risk is minimal and gravitational law makes it impossible to fall until you have flown? The heavy pressure Saturday will be on Calipari, who despite all the talent he has rented for Kentucky has failed to win the national championship there (or anywhere) as Pitino did in 1996. Eventually Pitino moved on, to a second shot at the pros with the Boston Celtics before settling in at Louisville in 2001 for his longest haul. Not coincidently, or at least subconsciously, ascribing himself as the in-state upstart in the process. So, here, apparently, is what Pitino has been plotting for from the day he arrived. No wonder he told reporters that this Louisville team indeed reminded him of 1987, when his full-court-pressing and 3-point-shooting Friars - in the first tournament to feature the now wildly popular long ball - helped relieve his family's anguish after the death of his young son. Yes, there is a providential ring to Pitino's sixth Final Four (with three schools), said Gordon Chiesa, another former Pitino assistant with the Friars who speculated that his old boss might have been happiest the first time around, when he was "overworked and underpaid." Chiesa, who works for the N.B.A. Development League, used to call the "87 Friars "Cinderella in black Converse," and he wasted no time in pointing out that their road to the Final Four also took them to New Orleans. On top of that, when Providence shocked its Big East rival, mighty Georgetown, in the regional final, the game was played at Louisville's Freedom Hall.