PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Rick Pitino and John Calipari. Gucci loafers vs. sneakers. The native New Yorker back in his hometown against a quintessential carpetbagger making yet another stop on the coaching trail.
And a pair of basketball lifers who are more alike than they care to admit.
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The Hall of Fame coaches will renew their occasionally acrimonious rivalry on Saturday when Pitino’s second-seeded St. John’s faces Calipari’s No. 10 seed Arkansas for the chance to advance to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16.
The matchup has been anticipated since the March Madness brackets were announced, and sealed on Thursday when Arkansas beat Kansas and St. John’s dispatched Omaha in the first round in Providence – where Pitino hung his first Final Four banner.
“I hope years from now people will say: ‘They both get their teams to play hard at a competitive level,’” Calipari said. “Do we do it different? Yeah, I guess. I am who I am. Like it or not, this is who I am and how I deal with kids. We’re all different with that.”
The two have crossed paths over the decades from summer camp to UMass – Pitino’s alma mater and Calipari’s first head coaching job – to the NBA and, most notably, to one of basketball’s most heated rivalries: Kentucky and Louisville.
In all, they have met 23 times as college coaches and six more in the NBA, with Calipari owning a 16-13 edge. When facing each other in the NCAA Tournament, they have each won twice.
“We’re both Italian. We both love the game,” Pitino said. “I think that’s where the similarities end.”
But that’s not entirely true.
They have both won NCAA titles – two of the six active coaches who can claim that, and one of them, Kansas’ Bill Self, was ushered out of the tournament by Arkansas on Thursday. They have both run afoul with the NCAA infractions committee; they share enough vacated wins and titles to make a lesser coach's career.
“He’s much older than me," said Calipari, who is, in fact, six years younger. “But we started in that camp and I have always looked up to him.”
Though they downplayed the animosity, the coaches also noted that they are not friends. Earlier in the week, Calipari waxed on about his relationship with Self, and how it's hard to play against friends; Pitino did the same about coaches like former UConn coach Jim Calhoun who have been important to him.
But for each other, there was a professional civility and nothing more.
“I certainly have great respect for him, but we’re not really close,” Pitino said. “We don’t know each other’s wives or children. We’re not really close friends. ... I don’t think we have been to dinner one time in our lifetime."
And it's been a lifetime.
Pitino was a counselor at the Five Star basketball camp that was a fertile summer recruiting ground in the 1970s and ’80s, and Calipari was a camper. When Calipari became a counselor, Pitino was already successful enough as a coach to come and speak.
When Calipari was applying for the job at UMass, Pitino put in a good word for him. Calipari would also follow Pitino — a decade removed – at Kentucky; at that point, Pitino was down the road in Louisville.
It was not a situation that tends to bring out the warm and fuzzies.
“You’re not going to be friends when you’ve got those two jobs. You’re not going to be enemies, but if he’s real good, you’re like, ‘Sheesh,’” Calipari said, shaking his head. “And if we were real good, he’s probably saying, ugh,” he said, making another face.
“Everywhere he’s been, he’s made a difference. I will study what he’s doing. I always do. Watch what he’s doing, how’s he doing it?” Calipari said. “To sustain excellence that means you’re really, really good at what you do. You’re great at what you do. Maybe you’re the best to ever do it.”
Calipari left Kentucky last summer for Arkansas — a concession to the fact that he had overstayed his welcome; for his first game back, Pitino put out a video encouraging the Wildcats fans not to boo him. (Pitino knew whereof he spoke: He got the treatment when he went back to Lexington as the Louisville coach.)
“It was tough to go in there and be booed by 24,000 people,” he said on Friday. "When you look back at what he did at the University of Kentucky, not only winning a championship but assembling probably the greatest talent in the history of our game ... I just thought they should really appreciate that.
“You just want people to feel good about what they accomplish,” Pitino said, “because I went through it.”
Asked on Friday what he thought about Pitino's gesture, Calipari said: “It was nice of him. I would rather have a Christmas card, but that was nice of him.”
Get a room, you two.
On Saturday, they will settle it on the court.
Pitino's Red Storm (31-4) have the No. 1 defense in the country and have won nine straight games, including the Big East championship. Calipari's Razorbacks (21-13) have recovered after losing their first five games in the unprecedentedly deep Southeastern Conference and have advanced in the tournament for the third time in four seasons.
And they'll both try to put their personal feelings aside — for a couple of hours, at least.
“Whoever I’m coaching against, that’s the rival for that day,” Calipari said. “The one thing I know: If I dislike a coach, I don’t do a good job. So I try to ignore all that.
“The problem is: Sometimes you’re playing coaches you really respect, and you don’t like doing that either. You would rather play somebody you don’t know,” he said. "Let’s just go play a game.”
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