March Madness: St. John's rolls past Omaha, sets up showdown between Rick Pitino, John Calipari

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Rick Pitino and St. John's will face John Calipari and Arkansas in the second round of the NCAA tournament. and Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
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Fans of basketball drama, rejoice.

Rick Pitino and John Calipari will face off again at the NCAA tournament.

Calipari coached No. 10 seed Arkansas to a win over No. 7 Kansas in the first round of tournament play on Thursday. Later, No. 2 seed St. John's beat No. 15 Omaha, 83-53, to secure the Red Storm's first tournament victory since 2000.

That means that Arkansas and St. John's will play on Saturday with a berth in the Sweet 16 at stake in another meeting of the longtime rival coaches.

For a half on Thursday, Omaha kept things reasonably close with St. John's, which took a 33-28 lead into the break. But St. John's blew open the second half with a 27-8 run to ensure that Pitino vs. Caliapri was on. In the game's final minutes, fans in attendance in Providence, Rhode Island chanted Pitino's name.

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It was a landmark victory for once-proud St. John's, which has advanced to two Final Fours and made nine Sweet 16 appearances as a stalwart of the Big East's 1980s and 90s heyday. But the program's lied largely dormant since the turn of the century, only to be revived by Pitino this season amid his own redemption arc.

Now it's one win away from its first Sweet 16 since 1999 with Pitino in charge of yet another NCAA title contender, years after he was ousted at Louisville in 2017 amid numerous scandals that resulted in the vacation of the program's 2013 championship. But there was never any question about his coaching acumen, which he's proven again by leading his sixth different program to the NCAA tournament.

Now Calipari stands in the way of Pitino's quest for a third national championship with a third program. Per CBS, the pair have squared off 23 times as college coaches, with Calipari leading the series, 13-10. The two have split a pair of Final Four matchups in a rivalry that hasn't always been cordial.

Pitino led Kentucky to victory in the 1996 Final Four Past Calipari and UMass en route to his first national championship. Then in 2012, Calipari returned the favor by leading Kentucky past Pitino's Louisville team in the Final Four en route to his own championship with the Wildcats.

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