Rick Pitino and John Calipari face off this afternoon in their fifth NCAA Tournament matchup as their respective teams, St. John’s and Arkansas, battle in the second round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
Their tournament record is currently tied: Pitino’s Kentucky Wildcats defeated Calipari’s UMass Minutemen in the Sweet 16 in 1992 and again in the Final Four in 1996.
Calipari evened the score as head coach of Kentucky, defeating Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals in the Final Four in 2012 and again in the Sweet 16 in 2014.
Now, Pitino looks for a measure of revenge in today’s Round of 32.
Pitino and Calipari: Battle of the Paisans
“We’re both Italian. We both love the game. I think that’s pretty much where the similarities end.”
That was Pitino yesterday, responding to a question about his relationship with Calipari.
“I certainly have great respect for him, but we’re not really close. Everybody tried to talk that way… We’re not really close friends. I don’t know a whole lot about him.”
St. John’s Head Coach Rick Pitino on Arkansas Head Coach John Calipari
This isn’t quite a Sicilian feud — while Pitino’s ancestors hail from Sicily, Calipari’s paternal grandparents are from Calabria, further north.
Now, while both men have publicly played down their rivalry, they’ve made clear they aren’t close. Pitino once helped Calipari land his first head coaching job at UMass back in 1988, but the two haven’t kept in touch in recent years.
Pitino elaborated:
“You know, I certainly have great respect for him. But we’re not really close — everybody tried to talk that way. That was just a Kentucky-Louisville-Memphis thing. You know, John and I don’t know each other’s wives, we don’t know each other’s children.
We’re not really close friends.”
Calipari echoed the sentiment:
“I don’t know how long he was at Louisville when I was at Kentucky, but 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 also added that the two men have another thing in common: biology.
The Arkansas head coach joked yesterday, “We both have big noses, so that’s one. He has Gucci shoes and I got itchy shoes, so we’re a little different there.”
By the end of this afternoon, one will have the NCAA Tournament edge with three wins to two.
And like any good Italian rivalry, this one will never really end. It’ll move on to the next generation. Their sons, Brad Calipari and Richard Pitino, are also NCAA coaches.
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