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Rick Pitino Reveals His One True Coaching Rival Ahead of NCAA Tournament

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Dave Ettinger | Last updated Mar 19, 2025 11:04 PM ET

Rick Pitino's name has become synonymous with the game of basketball. Pitino, 72, has played or coached the sport for over five decades. After playing college basketball at the University of Massachusetts from 1971-74, Pitino got his coaching start as the interim head coach for the University of Hawaii back in 1975.

Pitino has coached a total of eight teams between college and the NBA, taking three different teams (Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville) to seven total Final Fours, including two National Championship victories (Kentucky, 1996 and Louisville, 2013). In 2013, Pitino was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

After resurrecting the Iona Gaels Men's program, Pitino, a native New Yorker, accepted the job at St. John's University in 2023. After just two years at St. John's, Pitino has the Red Storm in the NCAA Tournament once again. They find themselves as the No. 2 seed in the West Region.

With a potential second-round matchup against John Calipari and the Arkansas Razorbacks, or Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks, Pitino was asked which coaches he's considered his rivals throughout his illustrious career at Wednesday's press conference. Pitino, could only come up with one name.

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

"There's only one coach I ever considered a rival in my whole career...And today I respect him as much as anybody in the game, and that was Jim Calhoun. We hated each other at BU and Northeastern, we hated each other, and there were 300 people in that whole arena. He goes on to coach at Connecticut, and I go on to coach at Providence, and we hated each other there as well," Pitino said.

As storied of a career as Calhoun had at the University of Connecticut, winning three National Championships, this is incredibly high praise. Pitino also coached against the likes of Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, and Jim Boeheim -- to name a few.

The instant St. John's won the Big East Championship, Pitino became the first coach in NCAA history to take six different schools to the NCAA Tournament. The others were Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville and Iona. St. John's returns to the field of 68 for the first time in six years.

St. John's will take on the University of Nebraska-Omaha in the first round on Thursday at 9:45 p.m. EST. If the Red Storm can make it past the Durango, Pitino would face either Calipari or Self in the round of 32.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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