Ranking the Best Moments of the John Calipari-Rick Pitino Rivalry

When Kentucky visits Louisville on Saturday, it's not just a matchup of unbeaten and highly ranked teams that have mostly demolished every opponent to get in their way this season. It's also the latest clash between two of the game's best—and most polarizing—coaches.

Kentucky coach John Calipari and Louisville's Rick Pitino have a long history against each other, dating back to the 1970s when Pitino worked at basketball camps and Calipari was a participant in those camps. Pitino helped get Calipari his first head coaching job, at Massachusetts, and the two have faced off against each other 32 times in both college and the NBA.

Calipari has a 14-12 edge (11-9 in college), moving ahead last season with Kentucky's sweep of Louisville in the regular season and then the Sweet 16.

It's a coaching rivalry that ranks among the best in the game, similar to what Duke's Mike Krzyzewski had with former North Carolina coach Dean Smith or what Syracuse's Jim Boeheim had with several retired Big East coaches. There's respect, there's contempt and there's strong competition, all the things that make for a great rivalry.

Over their long history, several key moments stand out. We chronicle and rank them here, for your reminiscent pleasure, ahead of this weekend's clash of Top 5 teams.

The First Time

Though they'd known each other for roughly 15 years, it wasn't until 1992 that Rick Pitino and John Calipari first met on a basketball court as opposing head coaches. That came when Pitino brought second-seeded Kentucky into a Sweet 16 matchup in Philadelphia against Calipari's third-seeded Massachusetts.

It was the first NCAA tournament appearance for both coaches at their current school (Pitino had led Boston University and Providence into the tourney beforehand) and each was looking for that breakthrough victory.

Kentucky's team was made up of a group of four seniors known as "The Unforgettables" but also included future NBA star Jamal Mashburn. UMass had a ragtag group of Minutemen that included Tony Barbee and Derek Kellogg, both of whom would go on to be assistants under Calipari and later head coaches.

Kentucky controlled most of the game and won, 87-77, to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1986. However, the Wildcats would end up falling in that game, dropping an epic 104-103 decision in overtime to Duke that is considered one of the greatest games in college basketball history.

When College Coaches Go Pro

JIM ROGASH/Associated Press

The allure of coaching in the pros often draws some of college basketball's top coaches to leave the amateur ranks and take an NBA job. Rick Pitino has done it twice, leaving Providence after the 1987 season to spend two seasons in charge of the New York Knicks and then again in 1997 when the Boston Celtics hired him away from Kentucky.

John Calipari made his one and only foray into the NBA in 1996, going from UMass to the New Jersey Nets for two-plus seasons that included being on the losing end of a playoff sweep and a premature firing following a 3-17 start.

Calipari and Pitino's paths collided six times when in the pros with the Nets and Celtics, throughout the 1997-98 season and in the early part of the 1998-99 campaign before Calipari was let go. The pair split their six meetings, with Calipari taking the first-ever meeting on Nov. 19, 1997.

The Nets claimed a 108-100 decision over Pitino's Celtics, but the next night Boston won at home, 101-93.

2005 Conference USA Final

While the suits the coaches have worn over the years seem to have never changed, the uniforms of the teams Rick Pitino and John Calipari have been at the helm of when they've faced off have gone through several renditions. And it was when the two were in charge of rival Conference USA teams Louisville and Memphis that things really started to heat up.

Louisville won two C-USA tournament titles and one regular-season crown in Pitino's four seasons there before the program moved to the Big East for the 2005-06 season, while Memphis won or shared the conference or division regular-season title seven times and claimed four tourney titles during Calipari's run from 2000-09.

Only once, though, did Calipari and Pitino square off in a C-USA tournament championship. That was in 2005, with Memphis hosting the tournament and Louisville coming in as the regular-season champ.

Louisville would also take the tourney crown, claiming a 75-74 victory behind MVP Taquan Dean en route to the program's first Final Four appearance since 1986. Memphis would end up playing in the NIT, getting to the semifinals of that tournament.

1996 Final Four

Long before the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry would ever involve them in their current roles, John Calipari and Rick Pitino had their first of two clashes on college basketball's biggest stage: the Final Four.

Calipari's UMass team, led by Marcus Camby, bulldozed through the Atlantic 10 Conference and entered the tournament with a 31-1 record. The top-seeded Minutemen won their first four NCAA tourney games by an average of 16.8 points, including an 86-62 crushing of No. 2 Georgetown in the Elite Eight.

Pitino, having led Kentucky to the Elite Eight or better in three of the previous four seasons, had his best team yet. The Wildcats had several players who would eventually play in the NBA, including Tony Delkand Antoine Walker. Their first four tourney wins were by 28.3 points, on average.

Pitino's Kentucky team would win this meeting, 81-74, and that would prove to be its closest result en route to the 1996 NCAA title.

2012 Final Four

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The student finally got revenge on the teacher, but it took 16 years.

The move by John Calipari from Memphis to Kentucky for the 2009-10 season set ablaze the already heated Bluegrass State rivalry, since Calipari was now expected to return the Wildcats to the level of prominence that Rick Pitino had established in the mid-1990s (while also beating Pitino's Louisville teams in annual regular-season games).

Kentucky had claimed the first three meetings in December 2009, 2010 and 2011, winning by an average of 10.3 points, but it was when the Wildcats and Cardinals met in the NCAA tournament that things got really fun.

Calipari's first two seasons with Kentucky ended in the Elite Eight and Final Four, respectively, but the 2011-12 squad was his first team overloaded with superstars. Center Anthony Davis, guard Marquis Teague and forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist made up a top-rated recruiting class that was expected to get the Wildcats their first NCAA title since 1998, and it would.

But not before getting a challenge in the Final Four from Louisville, which had the early makings of a team that would go on to win the 2013 title. The game was tied at 49 with 9:13 thanks to a Russ Smith- and Peyton Siva-fueled 15-3 run, but ultimately Kentucky would take a 71-62 victory and move into the title game.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.