How every former Kentucky coach did in the NCAA tournament

The transfer portal is a relatively new phenomenon in college sports, but the coaching carousel has been around for ages. There were a bunch of former Kentucky players who made an impact on this year’s NCAA Tournament, but a handful of old coaches made an appearance as well. Let’s look at how each coach, who once helped lead the Wildcats in Lexington, fared in this year’s big dance.

Former Kentucky Coaches in the 2026 NCAA Tournament

• Orlando Antigua (Illinois) | Final Four: Everyone loves Orlando Antigua. He had two stents as a Kentucky assistant and was part of the National Title team’s staff. He was the one coach who, after Calipari left, made a plea to stay in Lexington before ultimately returning to Illinois as an assistant. There, he has been a huge factor in bringing in International players. It was a strategy that helped Coach O and the Fighting Illini all the way to the Final Four.

• John Calipari (Arkansas) | Sweet 16: We are still a year or two out from Kentucky fans completely ignoring how far the Arkansas Razorbacks advance in the NCAA Tournament. The monitoring went down during Cal’s second year overall, but fans still kept camp but to look over their shoulder to see how Kentucky’s former head coach is doing. This year, he (and Chin Coleman, Bruiser Flint, Tyler Ulis, Brad Calipari, and the rest of the gang) made it to the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row before being annihilated by Arizona.

• Rick Pitino (St. John’s) | Sweet 16: Not one, but two former Kentucky head coaches advanced further than this year’s team in the NCAA Tournament. No matter how you slice it, that fact stings a little bit. While Mark Pope did get the better of the Johnnies in Atlanta during the regular season, Rick’s squad made it to the Sweet 16 on a buzzer-beater over Kansas. Unfortunately, they fell to Duke in the next game.

• Herb Sendek (Santa Clara) | First Round: Kentucky was a miraculous buzzer-beater away from losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament…again. Had Otega Oweh’s shot not dropped, Santa Clara would have beaten the Wildcats and put an exclamation mark on a disappointing season. What would have been an insult to injury is that it would have come at the hands of former Kentucky assistant Herb Sendek, who was part of Rick Pitino’s staff from 1989-1993.

• Rod Strickland (Long Island) | First Round: In just his fourth year as head coach, Rod Strickland took Long Island to their 8th NCAA Tournament in program history. As a 16 seed, they lost to Arizona in the first round, but it was a good year nonetheless. In his first season as head coach, Long Island went just 3-26, but Strickland turned it around in a hurry. The former NBA player served under John Calipari at Kentucky.

• Joel Justice (Ohio State) | First Round: Joel Justice married a Kentucky girl whom he met while serving as an assistant coach for the Wildcats from 2014-21. Since then, he has been an assistant at Arizona State, NC State, and most recently, at Ohio State. The Buckeyes lost to TCU in the first round of this year’s tourney, and now Justice is on the move again. He will move to Nashville and join the staff at Vanderbilt.

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