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Puerto Rico basketball signs American university coach

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-12-21 12:54

WASHINGTON - American Rick Pitino has sealed a contract with Puerto Rico basketball national team and will guide it for a 2012 London Olympics berth.

"It will be a great challenge," said Pitino, formerly coaching the University of Louisville team, is the only coach to guide three teams into the US college national tournament's Final Four.

The Puerto Ricans, which were the sixth in the 2004 Olympics and the first team in Olympic history to defeat a United States squad of NBA players, had failed to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Puerto Rico must reach the finals of next year's FIBA Tournament of the Americas to earn a trip to the London Olympics.