Rick Pitino has been on both sides of the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry.
He coached the Wildcats for eight seasons, leading them to the NCAA championship in 1996.
For the last 11 years Pitino has coached the Cardinals, leading them to two Final Fours since 2005.
Pitino was in a jovial mood Tuesday at a press conference at the school.
And why not? All the pressure is on John Calipari and Kentucky, while Pitino and the Cards are playing with house money in their national semifinal Saturday night.
So Pitino chimed in about the differences between the fan bases of the two schools and how the split between UK and UL fans can lead to some “bad marriages.”
“It ends up with a lot of bad marriages, a lot of mixed marriages that end up bad,” Pitino said. “You have a Louisville woman with a Kentucky man and it always ends bad. We’ve been trying to do something about it here and it just doesn’t work.
“But there’s a half a million Kentucky alumni in this town, there’s a million people. So it’s different.
“Now if you go to Lexington, if someone had a Louisville jacket on they’d be killed by 12 o’clock at night so it’s different. We have to live amongst our competitors here.”
Photo: Louisville Athletics
