Rick Pitino says Kentucky media members ‘need to learn a lesson’ following criticisms

Rick Pitino knows what the spotlight is like when you’re the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball program.

Current head coach Mark Pope has been under fire this season after Kentucky dropped four games to ranked opponents. At the time, the Wildcats were missing projected lottery pick Jayden Quaintance while starting point guard Jaland Lowe was dealing with a shoulder injury. However, that wasn’t enough to stop the criticism.

Quaintance made his season debut on Saturday and helped Kentucky defeat St. John’s, 78-66. In 17 minutes of action, the sophomore big man accumulated 10 points, eight rebounds, and two blocks.

After the game, Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino, who led the Wildcats between 1989 and 1997, called out Kentucky media members for criticizing Pope over the early-season stumbles.

“You all need to learn a little bit of a lesson as writers because you’re expecting Kentucky to be this great basketball team with all those injuries,” Pitino said. “You all need to learn a lesson because you can’t be a great basketball team without two of your best players, with no point guard, no big men.

“Everybody really exaggerates one game or two games or three games. Kentucky got blown out, and usually Kentucky doesn’t get blown out of any game, OK? But, you have to look at it when they come back, two gigantic pieces.”

Pitino and Pope have a history, with the former serving as the team captain on the latter’s 1996 National Championship Kentucky squad. Despite that connection, Pitino said he wasn’t all that emotional about the meeting in Atlanta.

“If this was at Rupp, I think I’d have a lot of emotion, but I didn’t have any emotion at all,” Pitino said. “I’m really proud of Mark, I think he’s done a brilliant thing with changing the whole mindset of the team, ‘Let’s be tough. Let’s be physical.’ It doesn’t surprise me makes the change. That’s why he’s a Rhodes Scholar candidate.”