What will it be like for Mark Pope coaching vs. Rick Pitino? Travis Ford explains
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Former Pitino players as head coaches inherit a losing head-to-head trend.
- Mark Pope meets mentor Rick Pitino Saturday in CBS Sports Classic; emotions at play.
- Travis Ford counsels focus on preparation and execution; sentiment yields to competition.
Kentucky men’s basketball fans will not want to hear this with what the Wildcats have on deck, but the record when a coaching protégé goes up against his mentor is not stellar.
Billy Donovan went 0-7 head-to-head coaching against Rick Pitino.
Kirby Smart was 1-5 vs. Nick Saban.
In the book “Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski,” author Ian O’Connor wrote that Krzyzewski was so deferential toward his college coach, Bob Knight, in the run-up to Duke playing Indiana in the 1987 NCAA Tournament round of 16 that “some close Coach K observers” thought it was “to his team’s detriment” in what became an 88-82 Blue Devils defeat.
On Saturday, Kentucky men’s hoops coach Mark Pope will lead the Wildcats (7-4) against No. 22 St. John’s (7-3) in the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta. Pope will be matching coaching wits with Pitino, the head man for whom the current UK coach played as a Kentucky center from 1993-96.
Pope was a tri-captain (along with Tony Delk and Walter McCarty) of Pitino’s 1995-96 team, which won Kentucky’s sixth NCAA championship.
As best as I can tell, Saturday’s meeting between the Wildcats and Red Storm will be the 17th time one of Pitino’s former UK players has coached against the Hall of Fame coach.
John Pelphrey is 0-2 head-to-head vs. Ricky P. Pope and Scott Padgett are each 0-1.
Only two ex-Cats who played for Pitino at Kentucky have experienced victory over their old coach. Both Travis Ford and Steve Masiello went 2-4 as a college head man vs. Pitino.
Since Masiello is now Pitino’s associate head coach at St. John’s, I went to Ford for insight on what it will be like emotionally for Pope to face his old college coach Saturday — and what is required for a former player to prevail as a coach over his own former head man.
“It’s hard, it’s really hard,” Ford said Tuesday of going against Pitino.
Is that due to the emotions of competing against your old coach or is it because Pitino is legendary for the quality of his game preparation and his teams are hard to play against for everyone?
“Absolutely both,” said Ford. “I care so much about him, I love Coach Pitino. Love him dearly. He means so much to me and has done so much for me and somebody who I just think the world of. And so it’s tough in that manner.
“I do think once the ball was thrown up, though, your competitive juices, both of our competitive juices, they came out.”
As a player, Ford was part of the UK program for four seasons (1990-94) and was the starting point guard on Kentucky’s 1993 Final Four team.
Ford was head coach at Eastern Kentucky (2000 through 2005) the first three times he coached against Pitino, who was then at Louisville. U of L won all three of those games by double digits.
On Dec. 13, 2006, however, Ford brought Massachusetts to Freedom Hall and left with a 72-68 upset over Pitino and Louisville.
In 2021-22 and 2022-23, when Ford was head man at Saint Louis and Pitino at Iona, the duo split two games with each winning on his home floor.
“That game at Saint Louis, we beat him (68-67) on a last-second tip,” Ford said. “Then he returned the favor twofold the following year. He beat us pretty good (84-62).”
If Krzyzewski showed too much deference to Knight — who had been Coach K’s head man at Army — in the 1987 NCAA Tournament, the Duke coach had worked through that equation sufficiently so that the Blue Devils prevailed over Knight’s Hoosiers 81-78 when the teams met in the 1992 Final Four.
Ford, who is presently in his second season out of coaching, said what he learned in competing against Pitino-coached teams was that, once the game started, the disorienting aspects of facing his old coach dissipated.
“When I was coaching, I had all those same emotions as far as how much I love him, but then all of a sudden I’ve got to try to figure out how to beat his team,” Ford said. “But, you know, once that ball is thrown up, it’s like any other game.”
Pope and Ford were on the 1993-94 Kentucky roster together, Ford as the starting point guard and Pope as a redshirt sitting out a season after transferring to UK from Washington.
However, Ford said Tuesday he had not spoken to Pope this week about going up against Pitino on Saturday.
“I have not talked to him about that particularly,” Ford said. “And it’s not something I would talk to him about. (Pope is) trying to figure out how to win a game, and I think the less all the other outside stuff comes into play, the better as far as trying to prepare.”
Ford does plan to attend Saturday’s game to see his former teammate coach their old team vs. their former head man.
Will Ford be in the stands at the State Farm Arena rocking Kentucky blue or wearing St. John’s red out of loyalty to Pitino?
“I’ll probably have some blue on,” Ford said, “I just won’t do it around (Pitino).”
This story was originally published December 18, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
