With Louisville Cardinals recently going on a 10 game win streak and improving to 16-6, the Cardinals basketball program has officially became a major ACC contender.
Louisville has secured a spot in third place as of today in the ACC standings, as Chucky Hepburn and Terrence Edwards Jr. are clicking on all cylinders and receiving the a lot of the media spotlight. Hepburn is filling the stat sheet as he is averaging 15 points, 6 assists, 3.5 rebounds, and 2 steals.
However, the center of attention for Louisville Cardinals basketball program is Pat Kelsey. Kelsey has turned this entire program around, where the Cardinals were 8-24 last season, 4-28 in 2023 and a combine record of 25-71 in the last three seasons.
Louisville 2013 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee head coach, went to twitter and gave Pat Kelsey and his Louisville Cardinals high praise.
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Rick Pitino went on twitter and gave praise to Pat Kelsey and called him a "great young coach", as this is the highest praise Kelsey can recieve as Pitino is known as one of, if not the best head coach of Louisville basketball historic program.
Rick Pitino was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013, where he had one of the best coaching runs in all of college basketball with his 391-134 record in 15 seasons at Louisville. Pitino would go on and become the third winningest coach in UofL history
Thanks to Pitino success, Louisville basketball is now in the nations’ top 10 programs in winning percentage under under his coaching tenure.
Pat Kelsey looks to have similar results on the floor and quickly got started. Pitino tweet was about the heated rivalry between Louisville and Kentucky and Pitino believes the rivalry is back.
The rivalry with UK and Louisville will be awesome for years to come. Two great young coaches with Pat Kelsey and our captain Mark Pope.
— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) January 29, 2025
"The rivalry with UK and Louisville will be awesome for years to come. Two great young coaches with Pat Kelsey and our captain Mark Pope." Hall of Fame Rick Pitino stated.
Pitino was a coach for both the Cardinals and Wildcats, as he was coach at Kentucky for the seven season prio to UofL. Pitino took Kentucky to six March Madness tournaments, two Elite Eight appearances, 2 Final Four appearance, and was a National Champion in 1995-1996.
For the Cardinals, Pitino led UofL to 12 March Madness appearances of his 15 years, including one Sweet Sixteen appearance, three Elite Eight showings, two Final Four bids, and was a National Champion with the Cardinals in 2012-2013.
These two historic programs saw each other back in December, where Kentucky secured a 93-85 victory. However, the Cardinals loss to their rival sparked the team as they have only loss one game since.
This rivalry is one of the biggest rivalries in all of college athletics, and a meeting in March would give sport fans a smile. There are tons of history between these two schools as the first meeting was in 1913, where Kentucky won 34-10. The two schools have played each other every season since 1984, as Kentucky leads the series 40-17.
The rivalry has been seen in March Madness six times, and Lunardi predicts it to be the seventh, where Kentucky leads the March Madness series 4-2. The most rememberable March Madness battle between these two schools was Kentucky 69-61 victory in the 2012 Final Four to secure a Wildcats national championship birth.