“Calipari is a pimp. He never could have outfought Pitino.”
By 
We got ourselves a Family Feud in Providence today:
Because time measures history even as it moves on from it, and because college basketball remains perpetually dictated by larger-than-life coaches with enormous levels of power, money and personality, the latest chapter in a relationship that is not, in fact, a relationship, is going to play out here on Saturday with great anticipation. It might feel like nostalgia. Or a hallucination.
Rick Pitino, coaching the St. John’s Red Storm, and John Calipari, coaching the Arkansas Razorbacks, will go head-to-head for the 24th time in a college game. Pitino is 72. Calipari is 66. Their first matchup was in 1991, a win for Pitino. The most recent was 2016, also a win for Pitino. In between, the two have gone from young allies to old foes; foes who want desperately for you to believe that one never crosses the other’s mind, and that their shared history is as much a matter of longevity than it is personal ties.
Let this serve as an open thread for Tournament Day 3.
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Photo Credit: By Adam Glanzman – Flickr: PressDay20034 copy, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25534353