Rick Pitino believes it would be a huge mistake for Connecticut to leave the Big East.

“I almost went to Connecticut, it was Connecticut or UMass,” Pitino told SNY.tv during an exclusive interview Tuesday at Hudson Catholic High School. “I remember when they were struggling to win the Yankee Conference. In all of sports, the greatest building job I’ve seen in my life was done at Connecticut. The Big East has taken them from a Yankee Conference school” to where they are now.

“With that being said, how can you want to leave? Why would you want to leave? My biggest mistake I made in my life is when I left Camelot [Kentucky]” to lead the Boston Celtics in 1997. “They’re leaving Camelot. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.”