On Friday, Rick Pitino talked a little bit more about John Calipari than he was willing to on Thursday and Calipari spoke more about their relationship than Pitino did.
But the two men were both in peak control-the-message mode on the night before Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks were set to face Pitino and St. John’s on Saturday at 2:40 p.m. in Providence.
Here’s what the former UMass coach and former Celtics coach were asked and what they answered and in some cases how they avoided answering, edited for clarity:
Q. Just talking to your players, a lot of them were too young to really remember John Calipari and Rick Pitino battles. If you can tell them one thing to think about from what you remember going up against Rick, what would it be?
CALIPARI: “They’re a team that’s going to be prepared. They’re going to play hard. They’re going to play rough. It’s going to be bump and grind. You’re not getting a free layup without getting bumped. That’s his teams. He’s not pressing as much where he would go 2-2-1, 1-2-2, 1-2-1-1. It’s mostly man. Sometimes they’ll trap. What you find out, the second-half numbers are ridiculous. They’re wearing you down like you’re in combat, and if you’re not used to it... hopefully we understand that. We talked to the kids about it, but they’re good. He’s done a great job with his team. That’s why they’re a No. 2 seed. That’s why we were a 10 seed. That’s why we’re the underdog in this game. Their guard play... and people say they don’t shoot it. You ready? Last five games, their percentage is better than ours from the three. So you have to say you really don’t shoot it then. Those are numbers that are real. They offensive rebound like crazy. If they get 18 offensive rebounds and make ten 3s, they beat anybody in the country. Would you guys who follow them say that? That’s who they are.”
What is your relationship like with Coach Pitino?
CALIPARI: “It’s fine. We both started in Five-Star, the basketball camp with Howie Garfinkel and Will Klein. He’s much older than me, but we started in that camp and I have always looked up to him because when I was a camper he was a counsellor. When I became a counsellor he was a speaker. He was there with Chuck Daly and Hubie Brown and I could go on and on, and Rick Pitino. You know, knowing what he did at BU and then Providence, then goes to the Knicks and then goes back to Kentucky and goes to the Celtics and goes to Louisville, and I can go on and on. Greece, Iona and now St. John’s, and 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? But there’s the formula, whether it’s me or him or another coach, the relationship with the kids to get them to play hard and play with a winning attitude, that’s something he’s always done. Again, understand 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 got those two jobs. You’re not going to be enemies, but if he’s real good, you’re like, sheesh, and if we were real good, he’s probably saying, ugh. But that’s, you know, I respect coaches. I respect coaches that can really do this well and if you can do it over a long, long period of time, I really respect you.
This is, you know. All that goes on with what we do 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."
Q. Just to follow up on the conversation about Rick, how do you think you’re most alike and how do you think you’re most different?
CALIPARI: “We both have big noses so that’s one. He has Gucci shoes and I have itchy shoes so we’re different there. I don’t know. We’re all going to be judged 50 years from now what we did and how we did it, but I hope years from now people will say they both get their teams to play hard at a competitive level. 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.”
Q. Rick has said a couple times that he doesn’t necessarily consider you a rival and that he doesn’t have that disdain. I’m curious, do you consider Rick a rival and if not, do you have any head coaching rivals?
CALIPARI: “Whoever I’m coaching against, that’s the rival for that day. I’m not, you know -- when you’re doing what we do... 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. Let’s just go play a game. But, yeah, I have never seen him as a rival. Louisville was a rival. He happened to coach there, but I coached against other coaches too. It’s... Bill Self and I, he won his National Championship against me and we won ours against him, but what? So what? I was at Kansas and left to go to Pitt as an assistant and he was the guy who took my place, so we’ve known each other for 30... 25 years. When you’re in this a long time, you see a lot, you meet a lot of people and there are people that you’re really, like, wow.
When I was at UMass, I would be in there not knowing whether we were going to win or lose before every game, like not knowing whether we’re going to win or lose, and I’m in there sweating, like, oh, my gosh. And I’m like, how did Coach Smith, Dean Smith, do this for 30 years? I’m going to die at age 40. How in the world did he do this? He started figuring out he knew he was winning 20, but the question was is he going to win 30? If you get good enough and you’re a good team, I guess you can last in this, but I didn’t know when I first got started.
We lost to Lowell. Stan Van Gundy was the coach. How about that? We lost to Lowell and the officials tried to give us the game. I went on the bus and I said, you deserved to beat us. They were Division II at the time."
Q. You matched up a lot to John’s other teams at various stops. I’m curious if you find any similarities from this team compared to other teams that you’ve played?
PITINO: “Nothing that stands out. Very long, athletic. Most of his teams are extremely athletic. This team is as athletic as I have seen. This team is quite extraordinary.”
Q. Obviously there’s a lot of questions about you and Cal and your history and your relationship. If somebody told you ten years ago when you were at Louisville that you would be coaching against Cal ten years later and you’d be at St. John’s and he would be at Arkansas, would you have believed that? What might you think have happened to lead to that?
PITINO: “I never have thought of that question and probably will never think of it in the future (Laughter).”
Q. Reading up about John’s career, you endorsed the University of Massachusetts hiring him. What did you see in young John Calipari that you felt like my alma mater should hire this guy?
PITINO: “First of all, I didn’t like what was being said about him back then because some people were pushing other coaches and UMass was in dire straits. They couldn’t come up with the money to pay the coach. They had no budget, nothing. They really fell on hard times. I thought John was the one guy that could resurrect the program. Now, I will say this: I didn’t think he could get it to be No. 1 in the country because I know where they came from. It was a remarkable thing. I have always said there’s three programs I always remember that just went from nothing to the top and that was Tark in Vegas, Jim Calhoun at Connecticut and John at UMass. You look at UConn today and say, of course, but back then, it wasn’t that way. They all got to be No. 1 in the country.”
Editors note: In other situations, Pitino has said he endorsed Stu Jackson to be hired at UMass.
Q. If I could follow up, you said you didn’t like the things that were being said about John.
PITINO: “No, not so much about him personally -- what happens is coaches endorse their other people and I think he was the assistant coach of Pitt at the time. And so everybody is trying to promote their guy and I felt that he was head and shoulders above everybody else to turn that program around.”
Q. Because of all that shared history between you and John, he spent so much of his career being compared to you, I wonder how much or how do you think you two are very similar and how do you think, if at all, you two are different?
PITINO: “I certainly have great respect for him, but we’re not really close. Everybody tried to talk that way. It was just a Kentucky-Louisville and Louisville-Memphis thing. We don’t know each other’s wives or children. We’re not really close friends. Like Bill and John have a very close relationship. Bill Self and John, I don’t know a whole lot about him except he’s a terrific basketball coach. At a very young age I knew him well when he was in Coraopolis playing in Moon Township. I have known him well back then, but I don’t think we have been to dinner one time in our lifetime.
We’re both Italian, we both love the game. I think that’s where the similarities end."
BETTING: Check out ourMA sports betting guide, where you can learn basic terminology, definitions and how to read odds for those interested in learning how to bet in Massachusetts.