St. John's replacing UCLA in 2025 CBS Sports Classic: Rick Pitino set to coach vs. his former team, Kentucky

The CBS Sports Classic is getting a high-profile swap for 2025: UCLA is out, St. John's is in.

That means a highly anticipated nonconference event on the college basketball calendar just got juicier. The annual mid-December doubleheader typically provides at least one Top 25-level matchup, but in its decade-long run the Classic hasn't boasted a game with this kind of storyline attached.

St. John's subbing in means Rick Pitino will coach against Kentucky at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Dec. 20 later this year. (North Carolina will play Ohio State in the other matchup). Pitino coached Kentucky from 1989-97 and famously guided a dominant Wildcats squad to the 1996 national championship. He'll match wits with his pupil, second-year UK coach Mark Pope, who played for Pitino on that '96 title-winning team.

"I've been trying to get this game for more than a year," Pope told CBS Sports. "This is a perfect scenario. It's the 30th anniversary of Coach Pitino's first championship — and my only one. Thirty years ago, Rick Pitino led BBN back to national prominence. Thirty years later, he's led the Johnnies back to the top in New York."

"Obviously, Kentucky was Camelot for me, I've said it many times," Pitino told CBS Sports. "So now, to play against The Captain (Pope), who made so many special moments for me and the team, in a battle that CBS is putting on is quite special. I will remember it for a long, long time."

It's not just the coaching matchup: the teams could be Final Four-good. Kentucky-St. John's might be a top-10 affair by the time they play five days before Christmas. As things stand now, the Red Storm are ranked No. 2, the Wildcats No. 11 in Gary Parrish's offseason Top 25 And 1. Pitino is coming off a 31-5 season, St. John's best campaign in generations. The Johnnies have loaded up in the portal, adding the likes of UNC transfer Ian Jackson, Providence's Bryce Hopkins and Cincinnati's Dillon Mitchell. Big man Zuby Ejiofor is also returning.

Pope's Kentucky team was a hit in his first season, reaching the Sweet 16 as a 3-seed and beating eight top-15 opponents en route to a 24-12 record. He lost a plethora of one-year players, but is expected to bring back one of the best in the SEC's best (Otega Oweh), in addition to transfers Jayden Quaintance (Arizona State), Jaland Lowe (Pitt) and Denzel Aberdeen (Florida).

"Since the day we took this job, I knew this game had to happen, and it had to happen this year," Pope told CBS Sports. "We tried a thousand ways to make it happen. It finally worked out and I couldn't be more grateful. I love Coach Pitino from the depths of my soul. He changed my life forever. He's probably the most prolific coach in the history of college basketball, when you think about everywhere he's been. He's a mentor and a friend and I love him."

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The game came about because UCLA — a CBS Sports Classic mainstay since the beginning — backed out in mid-April, doing so because Bruins coach Mick Cronin wasn't comfortable with an East Coast trip at the tail end of nonconference play, sources told CBS Sports. Cronin was consistently vocal last season with his frustrations over (unavoidable) travel discrepancies with UCLA being a Big Ten member.

"We've seen the Statue of Liberty twice in the last three weeks," Cronin said at a postgame press conference in mid-January, referencing UCLA's conference game against Rutgers and the 2024 CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden (both losses).

By nature of scheduling in the 18-team conference, UCLA (in addition to USC, Oregon and Washington) has to endure at least two road swings across multiple time zones during league play. With the next CBS Sports Classic happening in Atlanta, it's one less major round-trip flight for the Bruins.

"Whoever did it, I get it. I mean, it's probably virtually impossible to make the schedule, but I just know it hasn't been good for us," Cronin told CBS Sports in January about the Big Ten schedule, later adding, "I haven't mapped all this out, but I sure hope it swings our way at some point."

The CBS Sports Classic began in 2014 and, until 2025, only featured 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 best). The Classic is contracted to continue through at least 2026, but the fourth team — and the site of the 2026 doubleheader — will be determined at a later date.

For 2025, St. John's presents a best-case substitution scenario. UK and SJU have met 16 times, the most recent game happening in 2011 — but 11 of those 16 meetings were back in the 1940s and '50s. Pitino is 6-12 against Kentucky in his career, all 18 games coming when he was the coach of Louisville between 2001-2016.

Speaking of Louisville, Pitino has been ambitious in trying to schedule in the nonconference. When the Hall of Famer was in San Antonio for the Final Four to receive his AP National Coach of the Year award, Pitino mentioned plans to try and schedule Louisville next season as well. But after some initial conversations to try and work the game in, a St. John's-Louisville matchup won't be on the table for 2025-26, a source told CBS Sports.

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