Vicky Graff Photo
Never say never.
Maybe some Kentucky fans have yet to forgive former Kentucky coach Rick Pitino for becoming the head coach at Louisville and some of the off-court issues he had there, but many more fans obviously still have a special place in their heart for Pitino.
And new Kentucky coach Mark Pope adores his former coach who led UK to the 1996 national championship and berth in the 1997 national title game.
Pitino, the current head coach at St. John’s, not only was back in Lexington Friday night but he was at Big Blue Madness and helped bring the 1996 national championship trophy on the Rupp Arena court along with many of his former players.
Pitino wore a blue pullover with a UK logo and got a huge ovation from a crowd that booed him heavily the last time he was at Rupp Arena in 2015 when UK beat his then Louisville Cardinals. Pitino had a huge smile as he waved to the fans.
“I am so happy to be back,” Pitino told the crowd. “I said, ‘Before I pack it in, in coaching, I want to go back to Camelot for one more time.’ There’s no way I can return better. This is one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time because I visited all my players. I visited the fans that made me happy every single day for eight years.”
Pitino was not through endearing himself to BBN.
“And now we get to root for a gentleman that — there have been a lot of great coaches here, a lot of great ones — but we get to root for someone that that name Kentucky is what he’s all about,” Pitino said.
“It’s not about Pope. You’ll never hear him say (it’s about me). The most selfless, humble young man I’ve ever coached in my lifetime. One of the great, great examples of what Kentucky basketball is all about. Mark Pope is going to lead you to greatness, in every sense of the word.”
14 Responses
Wonderful !!!
Pitino recruited, developed & molded players who lead UK to THREE consecutive TITLE GAMES and was just one Derek Andersen (even if just in oT) away from a 3-peat!
The 3rd of those 3 was a GIFT to UK all wrapped up in BLUE which had players who coaches themselves to the 1998 Title in spite of being bogged down at times by the PLOW!
The 98′ team didn’t coach themselves. They weren’t coached by the "PLOW". They were coached by Tubby Smith. A man with more integrity in his fingernail than Pitino has on his whole body. Pitino went from giving Rupp the bird to blowing kisses. Made me want to Puke.
Jimmy, I for one never had a grudge against Rick P when left or he went to coach for Louisville. He gave us the best decade of basketball in the 90’s that UK ever had. Brought us back from he__ that Sutton left us. WELCOME home Rick. l
Do you remember that Pitino has a tattoo of a Louisville Cardinal on his back? 80% of Kentucky love scuzz bags.
"It has been my experience that men that have no vices have very few virtues."
Abraham Lincoln
So what and he coach at Louisville too. That doesn’t entitle him as a scuz bag . Need to looked at what he did for UK, not elsewhere. Lord have mercy get over it .
Cats79, the fact that he had scanky hoes brought to 18 year olds dorm rooms and had his hoe on a restaurant table makes him a scum bag. Maybe you can go and request that table.
Jimmy, that MUST be true, because we sure LOVE YOU!!! 🥰
Like most UK fans I was very disappointed when Pitino took
the UL head coaching job. But seeing him in Kentucky Wildcat
Blue last night brought back many, many good memories.
I’m glad to see Pitino back in Kentucky blue. He did alot for our program when the program was on the verge of becoming irrelevant. We were one bad hire away from not being Kentucky basketball anymore. He took a bunch Kentucky kids and every year they got a little better. After the Duke game that we lost in the last seconds, we completely dominated college basketball after that game for the next 6 years. 3 championships 2 won 1 lost. If we would have had Derrick Anderson healthy we all know we would have destroyed Arizona’s guards. We also went to a Elite 8 and a Final 4 in that stretch. Maybe From 93 to 98 was the greatest 5 year stretch I’ve ever seen. Was I mad he coached Louisville.? Not really Pitino wanted to get back to the state of Kentucky. He also took over for a hall of fame coach in Denny Crum. As Kentucky fans we tend to forget that Louisville is a pretty good program in he grand scheme of things. Actually the #7 program in college basketball history. So he made a decision that was beast for him. By being a gentleman’s college we should have fired Tubby when Pitino came back to college and let him be our coach again. Tubby had 1 special year and alot of average years
Pitino would be the greatest coach of all time and Kentucky would really be the pinnacle of college basketball. Over the last 5 years we have done nothing. We kind of remind me of Florida football. How they were dominate in the 90s and early 2000s but haven’t really done anything in a long time. The last great thing we did was go 38-1 in 2015 that was a decade ago. Cal ran this program down. I’m glad Pope is here to save it. The same way Pitino did for Kentucky and Cal did when he took over for BILLY G. UCONN has been the most dominate team of the 2010-2024. I think they’ve won 3 or 4 championships in this span. With Duke North Carolina and Kansas all winning championships too. We haven’t won one in 13 seasons. We average a championship every 8 or 9 years since Adolph Rupp in the 40s. 13 seasons is 5 seasons to many without a championship. As I said Cal stayed 5 years to long. He’s not getting any younger so I don’t expect him to do to much. Me personally I like Pitino more than Cal. Cal left us for another college. Pitino left Kentucky for his dream job. The celtics. Cal left because most of the fans wanted him gone. None of the fans wanted Pitino to leave. Pitino inherited a worse team than Cal did. He only had 1 bad year and even that year was exciting to watch. It took Pitino 8 years to make 2 national championships and 4 final 4s. In 8 years. When Cal got here he was on fire. But still couldn’t win the big games. Even with Eric Bledsoe John Wall and Demarcus Cousins on the same team all eventual NBA all stars he couldn’t beat West Virginia. Huggy bear shut that shit down. Even with 60 NBA players in 15 years he still only won one championship. That’s a head scratcher.
John Calipari’s 15 years at KY will never come close to Rick Pitino’s 8 years at KY, and CAL had almost double the amount of years to out-produce Pitino in terms of recruiting classes, results, won-loss records, postseason finishes, etc…….CAL’s first 6 years at KY is definitely close in comparison to the peak of Pitino’s run—but the greatest difference in these two resumes is Pitino having had to work with and WIN WITH basically what amounted to a KY high-school All-Star team his first 3 years here–the one exception to that was Jamal Mashburn–but MASH was Rick’s only true "natural talent"—the rest of that roster those first 3 years was all blood, sweat, hustle, and guts before talent, athleticism, or anything else, and all that was accomplished and WON during that time was through the best of what the state of KY had to offer of all those virtues and values, along with the best in basketball coaching and teaching. What Pitino and those first 3 UK teams of his accomplished is a story that will never be matched, topped, or bested—its one that will stand the test of time. Pitino couldn’t even fully unleash what he brought to the table himself in terms of his own recruiting, roster-assembling, and building a team the way that HE wanted to do it until 1993, which was Mashburn’s senior season, and the first year after the graduation of the Unforgettables. That was the year the real "Pitino train" could finally leave the station, and u saw what happened immediately when it did–they completely steamrolled people in 1993–quite frankly, that team in some ways had the makings of being just as dominant and destructive as 1996 because thats how dominant Mashburn was. And I think Travis Ford is one of the most underrated PGs in KY history. I really think that entire 1993 team is one of the most forgotten and underappreciated in KY history as well. Pitino was only beginning and setting the stages that year for what was to come in the years later, because that was the beginning of teams built exclusively by him, and not the scraps that he was left with when he first came in. Up until 1993, Pitino had been operating on house money because nobody expected anything, and that made the run even that much more fun. But as u look back now, u see how quickly the whole 8 yrs he was here went by–at the time, we couldn’t even appreciate how good we had it the same way we can today. But when u look back at Rick’s 8 years, and u think about the fact he had to get through the first 3 with the same scraps he inherited from day one–MASH was the only significant talent recruit he had of his own to add–then u think about the fact they finished #1 in the SEC regular season standings his second season–taking all of that into account makes it all the more impressive now when u go back and look at it. And when u consider the fact that from 1992 to 1997, Pitino never did worse than making the Elite 8–the one exception to that was the season after MASH had left and Rodney Dent was lost to a torn ACL. That was really Pitino’s only "down" year of the 8 of them. The Pitino ride here was the high of all highs—it was true euphoria, because it matched what they used to call "the basketball mecca" with what I believe to be one of the top 5 to 10 college bball coaches of all-time. Had Pitino never left for Boston, it would have been HE who would have become the legend that Coach K became in first quarter of the 21st century. There would have no been no other program&coach combo that would have matched what Rick Pitino would have continued on with here at KY. Because unlike the one who proclaimed himself KING, Pitino did more than just set out to have the best recruiting class in the country every year–he invested the time and put in the work, as a coach, that is required to be put in for one to achieve true greatness–and he instilled in, demanded, and REQUIRED this same work ethic, mentality, and spirit of his PLAYERS as well, so that both could achieve and experience that greatness equally! And Rick may have the biggest ego in the WORLD–and his behavior other places could be classified as detestable–but I know this much: none of that ever came into play when he was at KY, it wasn’t something that ever got in the way of what he was trying to do. There was never a SHRED of any kind of NCAA trouble for his entire time here. And as far as the ego and arrogance as a coach, if u are putting all of that into your craft and putting it to WORK and reaping SUCCESS from it for both yourself and your players, isn’t that what it’s supposed to be all about? If u are earning it and getting it done the right way, then u can have as big an ego as u want. The big difference between CAL and Pitino– as big as Rick’s ego is–he NEVER made the KY job about himself–and he never made HIMSELF bigger than the KY job! That’s exactly where CAL went wrong, and where he lost me. CAL, over time, came to believe that he either WAS KY, or that he was BIGGER THAN KY, and that’s when the fans and the SEC Tournament, and just winning and coaching FOR KENTUCKY, no longer were important to him, or were priorities for him. That was the essence of why I wanted him gone. And u know what else? Pitino must be right: KY MUST BE CAMELOT—because for him and the BBN to have lived thru and survived everything that went down with him at "that other place", and for him to finally come back to Rupp Arena and have his moment that most of us for the last 20 yrs would have thought would never happen–well, I can only say that is why KENTUCKY IS KENTUCKY–Because it is possible for Pitino himself to still come back, and for us to bring him back to pay homage to his rightful place with his own legacy in what he calls Camelot, and what I call "THE BASKETBALL MECCA", for Pitino, after it’s all said and done, to still come back and call KY HOME—-THATS what makes KENTUCKY KENTUCKY. And that’s the part that John Calipari either missed, or lost sight of later–either way, he missed the most important part of KENTUCKY. KING begins with a "K"—not a "C".
Jimmy you can call him all you want, I just like the fact what he did for UK not elsewhere. Have a Bless day!!!