Rick Pitino confirms home-and-home with Kentucky, Mark Pope 'dying' to beat him

One of the easiest, more obvious scheduling plans for Kentucky early on in Mark Pope’s tenure would be a matchup with Rick Pitino, his head coach while with the Wildcats in the 90s. Now, those contests between the two are unofficially official.

Per Pitino in a text to Adam Zagoria, Kentucky and St. John’s will be playing a home-and-home series. The Wildcats will host Pitino and the Red Storm in 2025-2026. They’ll then make a trip to Madison Square Garden for the second of the series in ’26-’27.

“For our 30th anniversary next year we will go to Rupp and they will return to MSG the following year,” Pitino wrote.

Again, the two sides haven’t set up the real paperwork and details yet. However, Pitino added that the “contracts haven’t been signed but we have agreed.”

This comes just a day after Pope told CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein that he was ready to face his former coach on opposing sidelines. That game would also give Pitino an opportunity to return to Lexington in a positive light.

“I’m dying to try and beat Coach, man,” Pope said on ‘College Hoops Today’. “It’s gonna happen. We’ve just got to work through all those little pieces that get complicated. I just think so much about the basketball world would be right with Coach having at least one more chance to walk back into this building and let Big Blue Nation show how grateful they are for him and how much they love him.”

During Pope’s introductory press conference, he mentioned Pitino and St. John’s immediately in an answer about scheduling. Pitino soon responded and said that he and his program would be up for that. The initial plan was a game this year in the bluegrass and then next year back in The Mecca.

However, that has moved back a year from those plans based on these details. That might work out better, though, as the date at Kentucky a season from now would be able to honor the 30-year anniversary of 1996 national championship team that Pitino coached and Pope was a captain of.

It would also just allow Pitino to have a welcome return in front of the Wildcats’ fanbase. He coached the program for eight seasons while going 219-50 (.814), the best winning percentage of his career, and winning the one national title. He then left the school for the NBA before retuning to the state to coach at their rival in Louisville. Those decisions had complicated the relationship for some over the course of this century.

This was a natural decision between Pope and Kentucky with Pitino and St. John’s. Now it’s just about sealing that deal and waiting for tip-off between the programs and coaches.