Rick Pitino gets brutally honest about matchup with John Calipari

For years, Rick Pitino and John Calipari were constantly compared to one another as coaches of the two biggest coaching personalities in Kentucky. Now that the two are set to face off against one another, Pitino addressed the longstanding “rivalry” between him and Calipari, or lack there of in his eyes…

Now, Pitino of course finds himself at St. John’s, where he has helped the program win their first Big East Tournament Championship in over two decades. Meanwhile, Calipari is in his first season at the University of Arkansas.

After each team took care of business in their opening round matchup, the two legendary coaches will now face off for the first time with their current teams.

Ahead of the looming matchup, Pitino was asked whether how he felt about the looming matchup with his rival, Calipari. But interestingly, Pitino cleared the air, outlining how he does not view Calipari as a rival.

“There is only one coach I have ever considered a rival in my whole career. And I’ve been blessed to coach against Frank McGuire, Dean Smith his last game. Only one coach I ever had a strong rivalry with. And today, I respect him as much as anybody in the game. It was Jim Calhoun. We hated each other at BU and Northeastern and there were 300 people in each arena. He goes on to coach at Connecticut. I go on to coach at Providence and we hated each other there as well. Today, I don’t think I respect any coach in the game as much as I respect Jim Calhoun. So looking back on it, it was really funny that stage of BU and Northeastern.”

Rick Pitino could meet John Calipari this weekend, but there’s only one coach he’s considered as his rival in his entire career:

Jim. Calhoun.

The answer: pic.twitter.com/fDjd3bbgRZ

— John Fanta (@John_Fanta) March 19, 2025

While this perhaps isn’t a direct dig at Calipari, it clearly shows that Pitino isn’t exactly buying into the storyline that the upcoming Round of 32 matchup is any sort of “rivalry” game between Coach Cal and himself.

Regardless, it should be interesting to see how these two coaches gameplan against one another in what is certainly their most important matchup of the year, as each game will similarly be throughout the remainder of their postseason runs.