Whenever March Madness rolls around, a sort of mythos always emerges surrounding the storylines and narratives that go into that year’s games. With every buzzer beater or Cinderella story, these legends are deepened, etching themselves into the history of what very well may be the most revered sporting event in the United States.
And what better legend than that of John Calipari and Rick Pitino? The two — now head coaches at Arkansas and St. John’s, respectively — have seemingly been tied together since they first came into contact at a basketball camp in Scranton, Pa. more than five decades ago. Since then, they have enjoyed a professional relationship that is sometimes friendly and sometimes anything but. Even they seem uncertain where they stand — Calipari once warmly counted Pitino among his “three or four really good friends in coaching,” only to later pull back: “I’m not on his mind and he’s not on my mind.” Pitino, for his part, confirmed it: “We’re not really close friends. I don’t know a whole lot about him.”
Friends or not, Pitino and Calipari have followed each other around the basketball world for practically their entire careers. When Calipari departed the college world to coach the New Jersey Nets in 1996, Pitino joined up with the Boston Celtics (who were in the Nets’ division) a year later. Both coaches posted records under .500 in the NBA, and when Calipari called it quits and moved to Memphis in 2000, Pitino found himself at Louisville — some 350 miles away but certainly a competitor for top recruits — in 2001. It’s almost comical.
However, my intention here is not only to chronicle this most dramatic affair. Really, I am writing this to highlight that despite their deep desires to beat each other — Calipari holds the edge 13–10 in college games, including an upset win for his Razorbacks over Pitino’s Red Storm in last year’s NCAA tournament — they are actually one and the same. Their actual coaching philosophies are fairly different, but the way they approach coaching players is quite similar. Both coaches have built careers on developing players, not just as athletes, but as people.
Take Calipari’s statement regarding his superstar first-year duo of Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas after last Thursday’s first-round matchup against Hawaii: “They have otherworldly confidence. Both of them could run for president someday.”
Then, consider Pitino’s thought process going into Dylan ‘Bells’ Darling’s game winner against Kansas in the round of 32, a shot which Darling hit after having zero points in the rest of the game: “‘Wait a second. He hasn’t scored a bucket, and he wants to run a play for himself,’ I’m thinking as I’m walking. ‘But he’s Bells.’”
What both coaches understand is that players are most likely to succeed when they’re trusted. So many coaches — including many greats — refuse to ever allow a player to work outside of the system they’ve built. Despite their differences, Calipari and Pitino both possess the ability to give good players the confidence to be great, and that’s why they’ve continued to find success rebuilding programs, landing recruits and winning championships.
This year, Arkansas and St. John’s are on two totally opposite sides of the bracket. They could only meet in the championship game, which is exceedingly unlikely. Still, their fates seem inextricably linked once again. Both are going into their Sweet 16 matchups as scrappy underdogs — Arkansas a No. 4 seed against No. 1 seed Arizona, and St. John’s as a No. 5 against the tournament’s top-seeded Duke — and both will do whatever it takes to survive and advance. By the time this article runs, the Arkansas game will be decided, and it will be a matter of hours before St. John’s tips off. But regardless of eventual results, the myth endures.
And so do they.
