LOUISVILLE NCAA TOURNAMENT NOTES

March 25, 2009


There is a Historic Path Open for Rick Pitino (Kentucky.com), head coach at Louisville. With the Midwest Region seeing their share of upsets, the path of the Cardinals has become a bit easier than the other top seeds face. Rick Pitino is on a quest to become the 13th college basketball head coach with multiple NCAA Tournament championships, but he is vying to be the first to do it with two different schools. And, the irony, it would be with two schools that are bitter rivals in Kentucky and Louisville.

The odds are very good that a Pitino-coached team will reach the Elite 8 if they advance through the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Pitino is an Elite 8-0 in Sweet 16 (Courier-Journal) in his coaching career. Arizona, the region's 12th-seed, will test that mark next.

The Evening Bulletin breaks down the remaining field of 16, naming Louisville Still the Favorite as Pitino Can 'Smell the Final Four (Kentucky.com) as he readies his Cards for Arizona, a team quite similar in makeup to his own.