[Stardust]

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketbal...le-rivalry

Saturday's game between Kentucky and Louisville has been circled since last April when UK announced John Calipari as Billy Gillispie’s replacement.


Expect Rupp Arena to be rocking for Kentucky coach John Calipari's first game against Louisville.Louisville coach Rick Pitino helped Calipari get his job at Pitino’s alma mater UMass, but there is no sense of loyalty between the two high-profile coaches.

They had a brief rivalry in Conference USA with Pitino at Louisville and Calipari at Memphis. But that has nothing on this.

Pitino, the former Kentucky coach, is still a legendary figure in the Commonwealth. He's the one who helped get the Wildcats out of the abyss of NCAA sanctions, won a national title in 1996, took the program to another Final Four the following year, and whose assistant, Tubby Smith, won another title in 1998 with Pitino's players.

Kentucky’s undefeated record, star power in players like John Wall, Patrick Patterson and DeMarcus Cousins, and the game being staged at Rupp Arena makes this even more of an event. Toss in Pitino’s sordid offseason soap opera of being extorted for an affair from six years prior, and the atmosphere should be one of the more heated of any game this season.