The CBS Sports Classic obtains a high -level exchange for 2025: UCLA was released, St. John’s is in it.
This means that a highly anticipated non-conference event on the university basketball calendar has just become juicy. The annual double header in mid-December generally provides at least one level of 25 best levels, but in its race for a decade, the classic did not apply with this type of scenario attached.
St. John’s Subbing in means that Rick Pitino will train Kentucky at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on December 20 later this year. (North Carolina will play Ohio State in the other match). Pitino resulted in Kentucky from 1989 to 1997 and guided a dominant Wildcats team at the 1996 national championship. He will correspond to Wits with his pupil, the second year British coach Mark Pope, who played Pitino in this 96 winning team.
“I have been trying to get this match for over a year,” Pope told CBS Sports. “This is a perfect scenario. This is the 30th anniversary of the first championship of the coach Pitino – and my only one. Thirty years ago, Rick Pitino brought Bbn to a national importance. Thirty years later, he brought the Johnnies to the summit of New York.”
“Obviously, Kentucky was a Camelot for me, I said it several times,” Pitino told CBS Sports. “So now, playing against the captain (Pope), who has made so many special moments for me and the team, in a battle that CBS is quite special. I will remember for a very long time.”
It’s not just the coaching match: the teams could be the last four. Kentucky-St. John’s could be a top 10 business when they play five days before Christmas. While things are now, the red storm is classified n ° 2, the Wildcats n ° 11 in Gary Parrish Top 25 and 1 of the offseason. Pitino comes out of a 31-5 season, the best campaign of St. John’s in generations. The Johnnies were taken care of in the portal, adding people like a UNC Ian Jackson transfer, Bryce Hopkins from Providence and Dillon Mitchell de Cincinnati. The great man Zuby Ejiofor also returns.
The Pope’s Kentucky team was a success in their first season, reaching Sweet 16 as 3 seeds and beating eight opponents among the first 15 on a 24-12 file. He lost a plethora of players of a year, but should bring back one of the best of the SEC (Otega Oweh), in addition to the Jayden Quaintance (Arizona State), Jaland Lowe (PitT) and Denzel Aberdeen (Florida) transfers.
“Since the day we took this position, I knew that this game should occur, and that had to happen this year,” Pope told CBS Sports. “We tried a thousand ways to get there. It finally worked and I could not be more grateful. I love the Pitino coach of the depths of my soul. He changed my life forever. He is probably the most prolific coach in the history of university basketball, when you think wherever he was. He is a mentor and a friend and I love him.”
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The game arrived because the UCLA – a CBS Sports Classic pillar from the start – fell back in mid -April, which did it because the Bruins coach Mick Cronin was not comfortable with a trip to the East Coast at the end of the non -conference game, sources told CBS Sports. Cronin was still vocal Last season with his frustrations on (inevitable) travel deviations with the UCLA being a member of the big ten.
“We have seen the statue of freedom twice in the past three weeks,” Cronin said at an post-match press conference in mid-January, referring to the UCLA conference against Rutgers and the CBS Sports Classic 2024 at Madison Square Garden (the two losses).
By nature of the programming during the conference of 18 teams, the UCLA (in addition to the USC, Oregon and Washington) must endure at least two swings on the road in several time zones during the League game. With the next CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta, it is a less major round trip for Bruins.
“Whoever did it, I have it.
The CBS Sports Classic began in 2014 and, until 2025, only Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio State and UCLA. The Bruins 3-7 record in the event is the worst of the four teams. (UNC, at 7-4, is the best). The classic is contracted to continue at least 2026, but the fourth team – and the DoubleHerader 2026 site – will be determined on a later date.
For 2025, St. John’s presents a scenario of substitution of the best cases. The United Kingdom and SJU met 16 times, the last match that takes place in 2011-but 11 of these 16 meetings were back in the 1940s and 50s. Pitino has a 6-12 year file against Kentucky in his career, the 18 to come when he was the coach of Louisville between 2001 and 2016.
Speaking of Louisville, Pitino was ambitious trying to plan the non-conference. When the fame of fame was in San Antonio for the Final Four to receive its National Coach of the Year Award, Pitino mentioned the plans to try to plan Louisville next season. But after a few initial conversations to try to work the game, a match by St. John’s-Louisville will not be on the table for 2025-26, a source told CBS Sports.
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