This year’s Kentucky-Louisville college basketball rivalry features the elephant not in the room.
That would be you-know-who, Rick Pitino, former basketball coach at Kentucky, now former basketball coach at Louisville, who won’t be around for Friday’s 1 p.m. renewal in Rupp Arena.
For two decades, Pitino was a lightning rod on both sides of the spat. Winning a national title at UK, he bedeviled the Cards. Winning a national title with U of L, he bedeviled the Cats. Your view of Rick depended almost entirely on your school colors.
When an FBI investigation implicated Louisville in alleged wrongdoing, however, the school (finally) decided its coach was no longer worth the trouble.