Rick Pitino, John Calipari Display Polar Opposite Player Approaches | Guilbeau

All right, let me get this straight.

Last Saturday, Kentucky men's basketball coach John Calipari counseled the media after his team's impressive upset at No. 13 Auburn.

"Please just leave my players," he instructed as he opened his press conference. "Let them be young, and keep attacking me. I may be the worst in the country. Just attack me, and leave these kids alone, OK."

Then last Sunday - a church day mind you, during Lent - former Kentucky coach Rick Pitino verbally attacked his St. John's players to shreds at a press conference after a 68-62 loss at Seton Hall. It was his eighth setback in 10 games in his first season at the private Catholic school in Queens, New York. And he named names, not Saints.

Rick Pitino when announced as St. John's new men's basketball coach last March. (Getty Images).

"We're so non-athletic that we can't guard anybody without fouling," he said. "Look, Joel (Soriano) is slow laterally. He's not fast on the court. Chris Ledlum is slow laterally. Sean Conway's slow laterally. Brady (Dunlap) is physically weak. Drissa (Traore) is slow laterally. I see un-athletic plays."

Wow, that's a possible starting lineup.

So, I'm thinking Rick wouldn't mind if the writers covering his team criticize his players harshly as well, right?

And he didn't stop there. 

Haste Made Waste On Rick Pitino's 1st St. John's Roster

"I had no choice," Pitino said when asked about his first recruiting class. "We could just take who we could get, who was available. We had no choice. When you rush like that, you don't see the players. Not a whole lot we can do."

Wow, I'm sure members of Pitino's first signing class loved reading or seeing that on their way to Mass, or the portal. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. And don't let the new players' portal door hit you on his way in, either.

Obviously, these two East Coast men of about the same age - Calipari, 65, from near Pittsburgh and Pitino, 71, from Long Island - have a diametrically opposed approach to player relations.

Calipari said he wants you to go after him, not his players. Yet, after his No. 17 Wildcats (18-8, 8-5 SEC) got upset, 75-74, at LSU (14-12, 6-7 SEC) on Wednesday, Calipari criticized his players.

"You can't win if you don't come up with fifty-fifty balls," he said. "I've got to watch the tape and see who did not grab that ball. The winning ball! Who didn't grab it? And why? Why not dive on the floor, just tie it up? And we win the game."

Kentucky coach John Calipari couldn't understand why his players didn't go for a loose ball at the end of his loss at LSU on Wednesday night (Getty Images).

Then he preemptively criticized those who might criticize him concerning Rob Dillingham's jumper with 12.4 seconds left to give Kentucky a 74-73 lead.

"You may say, ‘Well, why did you shoot it so quick?’ Because if you miss, you want an offensive rebound," he said. "Tie game? You wait. A one-point game? Ya don't."

Thank you, professor, and do we have any homework? Because I'm working on my essay - "Why Kentucky Hasn't Been To The Final Four In Almost A Decade."

"And you hope the defense can come up with a loose ball," Calipari continued with another shot at the players. 

Pitino, on the other hand, definitely does not want you to attack him, and never has. He regularly rips his players in the style of the late, great Bobby Knight. He just happened to do it Sunday in front of everyone, and quite a bit more directly than Calipari.

Rick Pitino Has A Bobby Knight Style

But Pitino did something Knight never did. He performed a complete reversal one day later. I felt like I was watching Tom Hanks' "Mr. Short Term Memory" character back when there was this hilarious show called "Saturday Night Live."

"I truly wasn't ripping anybody," Pitino said with a straight face last Monday to Newsday. "I was pointing out exactly - in a monotone voice - why we lost. I am certainly not calm when I rip someone."

Oh, so if you go monotone, you're really not criticizing someone? OK. I'll remember that next time I try to point out something remotely critical to my wife.

"There was no intent," Pitino continued in another interview. "I wasn't ripping them. I was very calm, very collected."

Yeah, like an assassin. Like Michael Corleone, whom Pitino has always reminded me of.

These coaches are so amazingly self-absorbed and self-anointed at times. They actually think if they say something, it's true. They think they can talk away anything. By coach-splaining, they think they're erasing. And they're wrong.

After St. John's won at Georgetown (8-18, 1-14 Big East) on Wednesday, Pitino apologized to his players and continued to a new level of spin that should be studied. But he should've just left it alone.

"My family and my players, outside of breathing air, they're the most important thing in my life," he said. "They are the air that I breathe."

Wow, this guy just channeled the Hollies' smash hit "The Air That I Breathe" from 1974!

"Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe, and to love you," the song says. Did Rick hear that on the radio on the way into work?

Rick Pitino Outdid Himself With This Spin

Even if the air is polluted with non-athletic players who can't run laterally, Rick?

"I love them dearly. I would never want to embarrass them or hurt them," he said.

This just did not sound like Pitino. 

The real Pitino would tell them if they don't enter the portal, they will be placed in the portal.

Speaking of the portal, I'm wondering if it didn't exist, would Pitino have delivered this Oscar-level apology? Because he's going to have to keep some of the players. 

OutKick's Dan Dakich of the Don't @Me Podcast should have left harsh enough alone and not apologize to his players.

"To me, Rick apologizing signaled the death of coaching as we knew it," Dakich told me Friday. "Because Pitino has never been afraid of players. And apparently now, Pitino's afraid of players because he said a couple of his little babies got upset about it. And literally, now everybody is subject to 18-to-23-year-olds' little feelings, and that ain't a good thing. It just made me sad. Pitino's not going to win with guys that are going to be sensitive about what Rick said in that press conference. My guess as to why Rick apologized was the portal and recruiting."

Dakich played for Knight at Indiana from 1981-85 and coached under him from 1985-97.

"I heard that every freakin' day at Indiana," he said. "I would've had no problem with that as a player."

It will be interesting to see how Calipari and Pitino progress with their obviously opposite approach to players.

Will Calipari keep cajoling his players and keep underachieving despite his continued acquisition of some of the best talent anywhere? There has been no Final Four since 2015 and no national title since 2012.

And will Pitino overachieve with less talent? He has done very well at that at various points in his career - Boston, Providence, early at Kentucky while on probation and at Iona.

I'm banking on Pitino. His players may not be able to move fast laterally. But they'll eventually get to the right place more than Calipari's. And they'll surely be tougher.