Rick Pitino calls Jim Calhoun biggest coaching rival during career: 'We hated each other'

Since starting his coaching career in 1974, Rick Pitino has stood across from multiple legendary coaches. Names such as Dean Smith, Lou Carnesseca and John Calipari were on the other bench, but the St. John’s coach said only one stands out as his true “rival.”

Pitino and Jim Calhoun had plenty of heated battles. That goes back to Pitino’s time at Boston University when Calhoun was at Northeastern, and it continued when Pitino went to Providence and Louisville and Calhoun went to UConn.

Of course, Pitino famously went head-to-head against Calipari in Louisville and Kentucky’s in-state rivalry. But Calhoun, Pitino said, was the biggest “rival” from his more than 50 years on the sidelines.

“There’s only one coach I really considered a rival my whole career,” Pitino said Wednesday. “And I coached against Frank McGuire his last game, coached against Dean Smith. Only one coach I had a strong rivalry with, and today, I respect him as much as anybody in the game. And that was Jim Calhoun. We hated each other, BU and Northeastern. Hated each other. And there were 300 people at each arena. He goes on to coach at Connecticut, I go on to coach at Providence and we hated each other there, as well.

“Today, I don’t think I respect any coach in the game as much as I respect Jim Calhoun. Looking back on it, it was really funny at that stage of BU vs. Northeastern.”

Calhoun went 248-137 at Northeastern before taking over at UConn in 1986 and remained until 2012. During that time, he amassed a 625-243 overall record and led the Huskies to two national championships. However, it was Pitino who had the upper hand in their coaching rivalry, going 7-5 against Calhoun’s UConn teams.

Now, Rick Pitino is looking at a potential rematch against John Calipari in the NCAA tournament this weekend. The two have not faced each other since 2016 when Pitino got just his second win over Cal as Louisville coach. But the bracket could set up an early showdown in March Madness.

St. John’s will take on Nebraska Omaha in the first round on Thursday while Arkansas will square off against Kansas. If the Red Storm and Razorbacks both win their first round games, a high-profile rematch would await with a spot in the Sweet Sixteen on the line. That would put St. John’s and Arkansas against each other, with the winner heading to San Francisco for the West Regional semifinals.