Louisville Finalizing Home-and-Home Series with St. John's

Years two and three of the Pat Kelsey era of the Louisville men's basketball program could feature massive early season matchups against Rick Pitino.

The former Cardinals head coach, who's been the head coach at St. John's for the last two seasons, told reporters on Friday that his Red Storm and Kelsey's Cardinals were in the process of of scheduling a home-and-home series between the two.

"Right now, we're negotiating with Louisville to bring them in very early in the season to play us," Pitino said. "After they signed the backcourt that they just signed, I'm thinking of canceling that proposal. They're looking at their schedule to see if they could do it."

St. John's is coming off of a fantastic second season under Pitino. The Red Storm went 31-5 overall, winning the Big East regular season title and conference championship. St. John's earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but fell in the second round of the Big Dance to Arkansas.

The first matchup would take place at Madison Square Garden early in the 2025-26 season, while the second would be held at the KFC Yum! Center. Discussions regarding the potential home-and-home have not been officially finalized, and it's still possible it never materializes.

If it does, it will be Pitino's first showdown against the Cardinals since he was fired back in October of 2017 in the wake of the college basketball corruption scandal. After two years coaching Panathinaikos, he got back into collegiate coaching when he took over Iona from 2020 to 2023, then later went to St. John's.

In his 16 years as the head coach at Louisville from 2001 to 2017, Pitino guided the Cardinals to a 416-143 record, three Final Fours and the 2013 national championship. 123 wins, three losses, as well as two Final Four appearances and the national title were later vacated by the NCAA as a result of the Andre McGee & Katina Powell sex scandal.

Over the course of his 37 seasons as a collegiate coach, he has an overall record of 885-311, and was the first coach in NCAA history to guide three different schools to the NCAA Final Four (Providence - 1987, Kentucky - 1993, 1996, 1997) as well as the first to win an NCAA Championship at two different schools (Kentucky - 1996). He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.

Louisville is coming off of a successful year one under head coach Pat Kelsey. The Cardinals went 27-8 overall, winning more games than over the previous three seasons combined, resulting in Kelsey winning ACC Coach of the Year. UofL made their return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019 - although it resulted in a first round exit to Creighton.

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