Tongue in Cheek, Massachusetts Coach Faces Off With Media : East Regional: Tired of comparisons with Pitino, he’d rather beat Kentucky coach.

Rick Pitino this. Rick Pitino that. John Calipari has heard the comparisons so often that Wednesday, after his Minutemen completed their final practice session for today’s NCAA East Regional game against Pitino’s Kentucky team, the Massachusetts coach decided enough was enough.

“For the media, you guys really want to say I look like Rick Pitino, so I’m going to help you . . . with this,” said Calipari, as he reached for something under the table.

As stunned reporters looked on, Calipari happily snapped a Pitino-face cutout in place and resumed the news conference.

“You have any questions for Rick?” asked Calipari, his voice slightly muffled by the Pitino mask.

Only one: Isn’t anybody nervous about the possibility of advancing to the Final Four?

Not here, they aren’t. Here the coaches trade little inside jokes and fraternal winks. Any more good will and everyone would have been asked to join hands.

Pressure? What pressure? Calipari, whose school made its first and last NCAA tournament appearance 30 years ago, put on a paper mask. Pitino, who used to coach the New York Knicks, for goodness sakes, nearly had to stifle a yawn when discussing the Sweet 16.

Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Seton Hall’s P.J. Carlesimo, whose teams will meet in the second game of tonight’s doubleheader at the Spectrum, weren’t any better. Krzyzewski quickly dismissed the theory that his No. 1-ranked Blue Devils would be overwhelmed by pre-tournament expectations, and instead turned his attention to another subject: “Don’t trust people with fake beards,” he said, referring to Carlesimo’s well-trimmed mug.

Carlesimo countered by saying that his friendship with Krzyzewski was nothing more than an elaborate hoax. In truth, Carlesimo said he liked Krzyzewski’s family a lot more than he liked Krzyzewski himself.

Of course, this is how it went at the East Regional Hug & Lovefest. It was a regular touchy-feely kind of afternoon, beginning with the story of Calipari’s rise to fame and the Massachusetts program with it.

Calipari was an assistant on Paul Evans’ staff at Pittsburgh when the Massachusetts job became available in 1988. He was 28--old enough to know that Massachusetts hadn’t had a winning season in 10 years and young enough not to care. Calipari wanted the position, but did Massachusetts want him?

This is where Pitino came in. About 15 years earlier, Pitino, a Massachusetts alumnus, met Calipari at the Five Star Basketball Camp. Pitino was an instructor, Calipari a high school guard.

One day, team drafts were held, and Pitino was forced to choose between Calipari and another player. Pitino picked the other player. That done, Calipari’s team went on to win the camp championship.

Pitino hasn’t underestimated him since.

When asked to serve on his alma mater’s coaching selection committee, Pitino, then with the Knicks, didn’t hesitate with his recommendation: Hire Calipari. The committee listened and then, influenced by the whispers of other coaches, began to look elsewhere.

Pitino, afraid that the committee was about to make a serious mistake, addressed the members once more. He told them that Calipari’s youth made him a target for older, more jealous coaches.

“Right now,” Pitino said that day, “he’s going to strike fear in the recruiting world and he’s going to rebuild this program.”

Calipari was hired shortly thereafter.

In four seasons’ time, Calipari’s teams have won 77 games (already fourth-best on the all-time Massachusetts list), appeared in the NIT twice and earned one of those cherished NCAA tournament bids--a rarity at the Amherst campus. School administrators, once worried about hiring him, now fret about losing him, what with his original contract all but expired.

“My freshman year, we had to beg people to come watch us play,” said senior guard Jim McCoy, the school’s all-time scoring leader. “There’d be maybe 200 people. Now people beg us for tickets.”

With the team’s 30-4 record, 14-game winning streak, five starters who average in double figures and home games in dinky 60-year-old Curry Hicks Cage (capacity: 4,058), it isn’t hard to understand the demand for Minutemen seats. But that isn’t enough for Calipari and his players. They want more: More attention, more respect, more everything.

“This game right here maybe will show that we can play with the big programs,” McCoy said. “I still don’t think we might be getting the respect that we deserve. Even after the Syracuse game--Massachusetts advanced to the Sweet 16 last week by beating the Orangemen--maybe everybody thought this was a fluke.

“When we got the (East Regional’s) No. 3 seeding, people laughed at it. Then we went in and proved that we deserved it.”

Calipari, knowing a psychological edge when he sees one, never fails to remind everyone of the slights, either real or imagined. When several of his players were left off the Atlantic 10 Conference all-star team, Calipari acted as if he and his team had been betrayed by close friends.

Sufficiently enraged, the Minutemen proceeded to whip through the conference tournament.

Before Oklahoma agreed to play Massachusetts at Hicks Cage this season, Calipari had to promise two return trips to the Sooners’ court in Norman, Okla. Another slap in the face, Calipari said.

The Minutemen aren’t a big team, either. The tallest starter is 6-foot-7 center Harper Williams. Everyone else is 6-4 or smaller.

And then there is the Massachusetts basketball legacy, which, take away Julius Erving, isn’t much.

“I think that teams now see us and it’s hard to get up for UMass,” Calipari said. “It’s not like coming in and playing a big-name school.”

Even the constant references and comparisons to Pitino wear thin after a while, though Calipari does what he can to laugh about it.

“As for our style of play, you’re talking about two different spectrums,” he said. “I know (Pitino’s) suits are worth $1,000 and mine’s worth $150. He’s got Gucci shoes on and I’ve got itchy shoes on.”

Kentucky beat the Minutemen, 90-69, this season. But the game was in early December, and since then, both teams have undergone remarkable change and improvement.

For example: Williams established himself as the best player in the Atlantic 10; freshman Lou Roe developed into a dangerous reserve; Williams and forwards Will Herndon and Tony Barbee became accomplished rebounders, and Calipari improved as a coach, enough so that Pitino rolls his eyes when told about the Massachusetts sob story.

“I think that has worn out its usefulness,” Pitino said. “They can’t claim to be David any more. They may not be Goliath, but they’re certainly not David anymore.”

The same holds true for No. 2-seeded Kentucky, which returns to the tournament for the first time since 1988. The Wildcats didn’t receive an NCAA bid in 1989 and were put on probation for the 1989-90 and 1990-91 seasons.

Be prepared for the unusual. Kentucky (28-6) presses a lot, shoots three-pointers a lot and, on a more conventional note, gets the ball down low to sophomore forward Jamal Mashburn.

“Without Jamal Mashburn, this program today would not be a top 10 program or a team in the Sweet 16,” Pitino said.

The winner between Massachusetts and Kentucky will face No. 1 Duke (30-2) or No. 4-seeded Seton Hall (23-8).

For Carlesimo’s Pirates, playing the top-ranked team in the country in the tournament isn’t altogether new. Seton Hall was beaten by then-No. 1 Nevada Las Vegas in last season’s West Regional final.

Nor are the Pirates unfamiliar with Duke. Guard Terry Dehere was a Pan American Games teammate of Blue Devils Grant Hill, Thomas Hill and Christian Laettner. Carlesimo coached Duke point guard Bobby Hurley on the USA World University Games team. Seton Hall freshman center Luther Wright was on the same squad. Byran Caver was a teammate of Duke’s Antonio Lang on the USA Junior World Championship team. Carlesimo and Krzyzewski are assistant coaches on the U.S. Olympic team.

And back in 1989, Seton Hall defeated the Blue Devils in the Final Four semifinals.

Of course, familiarity and history only go so far.

“Genuinely, not blowing smoke, they’re the best team in the country,” Carlesimo said of Duke.

And with good reason. Laettner has been virtually unstoppable and all but carried the Blue Devils to tournament victories over Campbell and then Iowa.

Against Seton Hall, Laettner will have to contend with the physical Jerry Walker, who punches in at 6-7 (about four inches shorter than Laettner), but 240 pounds.

The other matchup to watch involves Seton Hall’s guards--Dehere and Caver. Brian Davis, Duke’s best defender will be on Dehere, the Pirates’ leading scorer. Hurley will be matched against Caver.

“I suppose there’s other people we’d rather be playing,” Carlesimo said, “but they’re not in the tournament anymore.”